Sanctuary of Time
by Lady of the Sith
Summary: The future is lost. After witnessing the destruction of the galaxy at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong, Jaina Solo and young Ben Skywalker venture into the past in the hopes that by saving Anakin Skywalker's soul, they can save their future
1. Chapter 1

**Ossus: 32 ABY**

The explosion rocked the chamber.

Stumbling, Danni Quee grabbed onto the edge of the console in front of her, using it to keep herself from being knocked off her feet, and gritted her teeth against the roaring in her ears as the world around her shook.

Alarms shrieked in the air, shrill and piercing, and warning lights flashed all around the room.

She didn't need to look at the display screen to know that they were starting to lose power, through the Force she could feel it beginning to drain away as the siege upon the small base continued, battering their meager defenses and shorting out their generators.

They were running out of time.

Focusing her attention on the control panel, Danni frantically tried to assess whether they had enough power to go through with it or not. The energy bars were dwindling, and at an alarming rate, but if they did it now, there was still a chance that it might work.

A very slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. 

"Danni?"

At the sound of her name, Danni looked up at the woman on the other side of the room, who was staring back at her with a grim expression. She was younger than Danni, who was still relatively young herself, but her eyes were hard and old beyond her years, a testament to the harsh galaxy they lived in. 

Knowing what the younger woman's unspoken question was, Danni pressed her lips into a thin line.

"I can't guarantee that it will work," she told her bluntly, meeting the other woman's dark gaze evenly. "I thought we'd have more time, but they discovered us faster than I'd anticipated and their attack has already begun to endanger the device. We're losing power fast and there's no telling what might happen."

"But there's a chance?"

"There's a chance," Danni agreed somberly. "A very small, narrow, almost nonexistent chance." 

"Then we have to do it, it's worth the risk. Besides," the other woman smiled faintly, a smile tinged with bitterness. "It's not like we have anything to lose, they're about to come through the doors."

Danni didn't bother to deny that, they both knew it was only a matter of minutes, or less, before the enemy was upon them.

The others could only hold them off for so long, and they'd already managed to buy them more time than she would have believed possible, with just a handful of them against such overwhelming numbers.

"We have to do it now, then," she said shortly. "Get ready."

Not needing to be told twice, the dark-haired woman moved in front of the platform, bending down to lift the small child at her side into her arms and whispering soothing words of comfort to ease the little boy's frightened tears. He buried his face into her shoulder, so that all Danni could see was a mop of reddish gold hair.

_This is going to be so hard for him,_ Danni thought, her heart aching for the child. _He won't understand._

But it was the only way.

Checking the diagnostics display one more time, just to make sure they were still drawing on the power source for the energy necessary to power the machine, Danni gestured with her hand urgently.

"Onto the platform," she ordered quickly. "There's not much time."

"There never is," her compatriot pointed out darkly.

She tossed a large pack, filled with personal affects and supplies that included several lightsabers, though her own was clipped to her belt, onto the platform before climbing up herself with the boy in her arms. He was trying so hard to be brave even as his lower lip trembled and the wet streaks on his cheeks continued to glisten.

It was unfair that at five years old, he already knew firsthand what a cold, uncaring place the galaxy was.

"Don't worry, little man," his guardian murmured with a weak smile, smoothing his hair affectionately. "It's going to be okay, I promise." 

Danni prayed to the Force that she was right, or they were all doomed.

Because everything hung in the balance.

It had been a crazy plan to begin with, one born out of desperation with nothing to lose and everything to gain. If they failed, then the galaxy was already lost and at least they'd tried one last long-shot method to save it.

But if they succeeded...

There was a chance that everything could be made right, that all of the death and destruction could be undone and all the hundreds of billions of lives lost could be spared.

_The past cannot be changed, you must learn from it and let it go._

How many times had they heard those words from Master Skywalker or the other Masters of the Order? But Master Skywalker was gone now, and the Order he'd reforged had been reduced to nothing but crumbling ashes in the face of the enemy's purges.

If the future was always in motion, who was to say that the past wasn't, as well?

_I guess we're about to find out,_ Danni thought somberly, glancing briefly at the platform to make sure that both of its occupants were completely inside the circle boundary. _One way or the other._

"Ready?" she asked tersely.

"Ready as we'll ever be," the younger woman retorted with a weak smile, shifting the boy on her hip.

Danni would have liked to smile back at her, if only to offer some reassurance, but there was no time, and the Force was tugging her forward with a sense of growing urgency. The others were falling, giving their lives to give her a chance to pull this off, and she'd felt more than one familiar life snuffed out already.

If she'd felt them, she was certain that the other woman had, as well, and that the little boy's tears were only coming harder because of what he sensed happening beyond the relative safety of this chamber.

Forcing herself not to think about it, not to dwell on her friends who were dying at this very moment, Danni brushed a strand of straggly blond hair out of her eyes and quickly began to punch the buttons necessary to activate the machine, then flipped the switches that controlled the energy being absorbed from the power source.

A low humming sound filled the air and a small pinprick of silverish light began to grow in the air above the platform, just over the dark-haired woman's head.

The little boy squirmed, and tried to tilt his head up, but she kept it turned down with a gentle hand.

"Don't look up, Ben," Danni heard her order softly. "Just close your eyes, little man."

The walls of the chamber shook, and the sounds of battle grew louder.

Closer.

Death was a constant stream flooding the Force, and Danni's heart cried out in grief as she felt the last presence, weary and battered but fighting until the end, dim and fade away into the Force.

Ben Skywalker sobbed on the platform, and his guardian held him close, singing softly in his ear a song that Danni could barely make out and did not know the words to, but she recognized the tune as the lullaby that the younger woman would often sing him to sleep with.

A loud thud echoed through the thick doors of the lab, followed by another.

_Sithing hells,_ Danni thought, her heart hammering just as loud as the pounding against the doors. _They're going to break the door down._

"I'll hold the door as long as I can," the woman on the platform told her gravely, and Danni felt the Force stir, a strong concentration of it tightening along the surface of the door as a Force-shield erected. "But it will fall as soon as I'm gone."

Despite the warning, Danni shook her head. "Don't worry about that," she said curtly. "They're going to blow the door soon anyway, so if you sense danger, pull back. You won't do us any good if you get through only to wind up there with psychic shock."

"You have a point," the other woman conceded.

"Besides," Danni added, forcing a smile. "I'm going to be dead in a few minutes no matter what happens. All that matters is that you get where you're supposed to, so that you can try to change all of this."

"Do or do not, there is no try."

Danni opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by a loud, shrill keening noise from on the other side of the thick doors of the lab. Glancing over her shoulder, she swallowed hard, then turned to the display panel, silently urging the power converters to pick up speed.

She was going to die, there was no avoiding it and she'd accepted it ages ago, but she couldn't die until she finished this, she wouldn't let that happen.

Not when there was so much riding on this, not when so many had given their lives to get them here in the first place, to make it possible for them to even attempt such a radical thing. It had been a suicidal idea to return to the galaxy that had fallen to the enemy, but there hadn't been any other choice.

Ossus was the only planet that would work.

They needed the anomalous wormhole there to power the machine, and it would only work once, the wormhole would collapse in on itself once the energy being drawn out of it reached critical mass, so there was no room for error.

Behind her, plasteel and metal shrieked, even as the display panel lit up.

_Shavit, this better work,_ Danni thought desperately, punching a few buttons savagely.

The pinprick of silver light at the top of the platform, which had slowly been growing bigger and brighter, suddenly expanded as if it had been tugged in all directions. It filled the full width of the circular platform, shimmering above the figures beneath it, ready to swallow them whole.

"Danni," the younger woman said anxiously. "Danni, come with us." 

"I can't," Danni replied hoarsely, and did not dare to look up, lest she let her see the tears that were about to fall from her eyes. "We knew from the start we'd only be able to send one person, it's a stretch just to get Ben with you, but we had to try, he has to survive in case you fail. Because then he really is our last hope."

A low, ominous creak sounded from the massive doors behind her and an eerie silence fell over the chamber. 

"Danni-"

Swallowing hard, Danni shoved the large lever in the center of the control panel forward, causing the silver portal to glow even brighter as the humming melody reached its crescendo.

She looked up and met the other woman's wide eyes. 

"May the Force be with you, Jaina," she rasped. 

And the shimmering silver portal fell from its epicenter, washing over the last of the Skywalkers, and by the time it hit the floor of the platform, dissipating, Jaina Solo and Ben Skywalker were gone.

A heartbeat later, the doors exploded inward, sending debris flying through the air.

Danni was thrown back by the force of the explosion, slamming into the durasteel wall, and her head smacked against the hard, unrelenting surface. Pain shot through her body, aching and throbbing, as her vision swam, but she was able to push herself up onto her elbows, lifting her head to see what the damage was.

Smoke, acrid and black, billowed into the room, cloaking the doorway in thick shroud. For one long, surreal moment, the smokescreen gave to an eerie, tense canvas of white.

Then a horde of Yuuzhan Vong warriors burst through the smoke.

She had a lightsaber, Corran Horn had helped her construct one several years ago, just before his death, but it had been hurled across the room during the explosion, and she had no time to reach for it.

In the blink of an eye, Danni went to join the rest of her kind, becoming one with the Force.

The last of the Jedi.


	2. Chapter 2

**Talhalla Plains, Jarlath: 19 BBY**

A ripple in the Force warned of the incoming detonator with a second to spare.

"Get down!"

Throwing himself forward even as he shouted a warning, Anakin Skywalker fell into a diving roll, letting the Force carry him further than his body's momentum would have on its own. 

Instinct told him to stay low to the ground.

A shrill wail filled the air as the detonator erupted, sending a wave of fire, heat and flame careening across the battlefield, swallowing up everything in its path.

The explosion rang in his ears and molten debris from the Republic hovertanks that had been caught in the blast rained down upon him, hot embers dusting across the Jedi robe which protected his back from the heat and catching on the dark material.

Rolling onto his back, Anakin smothered out the searing embers before they could inflame.

"Skywalker?" a familiar voice called.

"Still in one piece, Master Secura," Anakin assured her, pushing to his feet as the Twi'lek Jedi emerged from the smoke billowing from the skeleton of what was once a hovertank. She was favoring her right leg, he noticed the moment he laid eyes on her, but there wasn't any visible sign of injury so he assumed she'd just twisted it during the explosion. "How about you?"

"I'll survive," she replied, eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of the enemy droids.

"How many did we lose?" Anakin asked her, glancing somberly at the charred shell of blackened armor about a dozen yards away. 

"Everyone in the hovertanks," Aayla answered grimly. "Bly is regrouping the ground forces."

So, Bly had survived, that was a relief.

During the long, relentless months of war, it had become common for the Jedi commanders and generals to develop battlefield partnerships with a handful of the clonetroopers regularly assigned to their command, and Anakin knew that Aayla and Bly had been working together for quite a while now.

It would have been a pity to lose Bly on this mission.

"I can't sense the droids out there," Aayla announced, frustrated. "Are you picking up on anything, Anakin?"

Reaching out with his senses, Anakin probed the area for any hint of danger. There wasn't much point in trying to sense the droids themselves in the Force, but when there were that many battledroids grouped together, all intent on killing you, it wasn't hard to get a general read on the situation.

"They're pulling back," he concluded after a moment. "Most likely covering Soer's retreat."

"And keeping their weapons trained on us in case we try to follow, no doubt," Aayla sighed, reaching for the comm-link on her belt. "Kit?" 

There was a burst of static, and then the voice of Kit Fisto crackled in the air.

"Aayla, we heard the explosion," Kit said without preamble.

"We lost about three dozen clones," Aayla told him, sensing the unspoken question. "But our ground troops are still mostly in tact."

"And you are uninjured?"

"I'm fine," Aayla assured her old friend, a faint trace of a smile gracing her lips. "And you can tell Obi-Wan not to worry, I'm taking good care of his former Padawan- or rather, Anakin is taking good care of me."

Despite himself, Anakin's lips twitched upward even as he rolled his eyes. 

It had been nearly five months since his Knighting after Praestilyn, but one wouldn't know that the way that Obi-Wan carried on sometimes. His former Master had relaxed some since then, and was even making an effort to view him as an equal and fellow Jedi instead of the apprentice he'd raised from childhood, but at times Anakin wondered if the man would ever be willing, or prepared, to completely let him go.

_A Master's job doesn't end when he cuts the Padawan braid,_ Obi-Wan was found of spouting irritably these days. _You don't have enough sense of self-preservation to worry for yourself, so someone's got to do it._

Anakin refrained from admitting that someone else was worrying about him enough for them both.

It didn't matter that he half-suspected that Obi-Wan was aware of his involvement with a certain young senator, nor that his former Master had vaguely hinted that he knew there was some sort of secret relationship between them, Anakin wasn't going to confirm it either way.

Now that he was out on his own, it seemed that Obi-Wan was relaxing a little and Anakin had high hopes for him yet.

Maybe one day, he'd even sleep without his lightsaber under his pillow.

"It looks like the droid army is pulling back from our point," Aayla said into her comm-link. "Anakin thinks they're covering Soer's retreat." 

"Our location is still meeting with heavy opposition," Kit replied, and Anakin could almost hear the frown on his face. 

"Anakin's right," the distinctive and familiar voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi came over the comm. "Soer knows that we're closing in on him from all sides, he must be getting desperate by now. Without reinforcements, he's going to either have to surrender or flee."

"He won't surrender," Anakin snorted.

"No, I doubt he will," Obi-Wan replied. "He's probably heading into the mountain pass, hoping to lose us."

"Or he could be doubling back to Geriias," Aayla pointed out.

"He'll make for the pass," Anakin said, shaking his head. "He'd have to cut too close to Major Fellor's volunteer brigade if he tried to make it to Geriias."

"I don't think he'll chance it," Obi-Wan agreed.

"General?"

Both Anakin and Aayla looked up at the sound of Bly's voice, and found the clone commander approaching, his helmet removed and tucked under one arm. It never failed to unsettle Anakin how the hundreds of thousands of clones serving the Republic all bore the face of the bounty hunter who'd been part of the assassination attempts on Padmé, but he'd long since learned to appreciate them as individuals.

He'd even given a few of them names at one point or another, although he suspected Alpha was probably the only one who'd kept his.

"The ground troops are ready to move out," Bly informed them. "We await your orders."

"What do you think, Obi-Wan, Kit?" Aayla asked into the comm-link.

"Pursue the droid army, but keep your distance," Kit replied after a moment of conferring with Obi-Wan. "We'll attempt to cut Soer off on the other side of the pass."

"There's a chance we'll have to fight our way through the droid army," Aayla observed flatly.

"A chance, yes," Obi-Wan responded. "That doesn't mean you should go looking for a fight, however."

The unspoken 'Anakin' at the end of that comment was blaringly obvious.

"Noted," Anakin said shortly, through gritted teeth.

He started to turn away, moving towards the ground troops, when he was suddenly brought to a violent halt, every cell in his body straining, as if listening to something that only they could hear.

Somewhere, systems away, something was shifting.

The Force twisted, bent, convulsed around something abnormal, as if trying to expel it.

For a long moment, stars stretched beyond their limit, space expanded, and he felt himself being pulled outward and along with the rest of the galaxy as the current changed.

And then everything snapped back into place, as if nothing had ever happened in the first place. 

"Anakin?"

Slowly, he became aware of his name being called, and he blinked, startled to find Aayla staring at him worriedly, her lips moving, but the voice echoing in his ears was not hers.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan's gruff voice crackled over the comm-link. "Anakin, are you all right?"

"Yes," Anakin said at last, shaking his head to dispel the lingering fogginess. "Yes, Master, I'm fine. I just... felt something, that's all."

"Something here?" Obi-Wan asked. "On Jarlath?"

"No," Anakin replied. "Something... elsewhere. Something elusive. A disturbance in the Force."

"The Sith?" Kit questioned anxiously. 

"Not the Sith," Anakin assured him. "It wasn't dark, it was... I can't describe it."

Frowning, he turned inward, trying to recapture that moment, to analyze what he'd felt in the Force, and he found a faint tendril of the... presence, for a lack of better word, that had burst suddenly into the Force. It was like an echo, but it wasn't out in the vastness of space, it was within his chest, within him.

Whatever that disturbance had been, it had touched him, and he didn't think it had been intentional.

"It was as if the Force suddenly shifted," he found himself murmuring, more to himself than to the others, even Obi-Wan. "And it felt like something in me shifted, as well." 

There was silence for a long moment, and Anakin was acutely aware of Obi-Wan's concern on the other side of the mountains. 

"We'll have to deal with it later, whatever it was," his former Master declared after a pause. "Right now, we have a job to do. Will you be all right to remain in battle, Anakin?" 

"Of course," Anakin retorted indignantly.

"Very well, then," Kit said calmly, probably before Obi-Wan could chastise him for his attitude. "Keep the comms open as you follow Soer's army. We will do the same as we intercept him from the north. May the Force be with you both."

"And with you, Master Fisto."

Securing her comm-link to her belt once more, Aayla gave the order for Bly to pass on the orders to the ground troops, then turned to Anakin with an appraising look in her eyes. "Are you certain you are all right?" she asked. 

"I'm fine," Anakin insisted. "It was probably nothing, anyway."

"Perhaps," Aayla murmured, but it was clear she didn't believe that was the case.

Anakin couldn't blame her.

**Ossus: 19 BBY**

There was no telling how much time had passed. 

It could have been merely a moment, or it could have been a year.

But the last thing Jaina Solo remembered was staring out at Danni Quee, feeling the Jedi scientist's fear, and then she was gone, swallowed up by the silver light.

The next thing she knew, there was solid ground beneath her feet.

And then she swayed, overcome with a sudden bought of dizziness, and stumbled over the pack at her feet before she was able to grasp her vertigo and shove it aside with the Force, regaining her balance.

"Jaya?" 

Blinking once to let her swimming vision even out, Jaina looked down at her little cousin in her arms and smiled weakly. "The dizziness will pass, Ben," she promised him, and pressed a finger to his forehead for good measure, using the Force to calm his nervous system as she had her own. "All better now?"

"All better," Ben confirmed with a nod, then scrunched his face into a frown. "Where we at?"

"We're on Ossus," Jaina told him, and looked around with a frown. "I think." 

Sure enough, after a moment of scrutiny she recognized the crumbling ruins of what was once, thousands of years ago, the Great Jedi Library that her uncle had dreamed of rebuilding one day.

But that dream, like the Jedi Order itself, had been reduced to dust. 

_We can change that, though,_ she reminded herself. _That's why I came back in the first place, to give the Jedi, and the galaxy, a second chance._

If nothing else, maybe she could make the future a little better.

"Where are the Vong?" Ben asked anxiously.

"There aren't any Vong here, Ben," Jaina assured him with a weary, but relieved smile. "You don't have to worry about them anymore."

At least not for another forty-something years.

Ben looked around suspiciously, as if he expected a band of Yuuzhan Vong to jump out at them from behind the ruins at any moment, and it made Jaina's heart ache. He'd been born into the war, into the slow death of the galaxy, it was all he'd ever known.

To Ben, there had never been a time when they weren't running from the Vong.

_He's the real reason for this,_ Jaina thought sadly, touching a hand to his reddish gold hair tenderly as she indulged in a bit of wistfulness. _So that he can grow up in a better galaxy than the one we left behind._

Better than the one that had claimed the lives of their entire family.

To her amusement, and her pride, Jaina felt a small stirring of the Force around Ben as her cousin reached out with the Force to tentatively look for the 'bad empty' that he associated with a Vong presence nearby. As their numbers had dwindled at the hands of the Vong, there had been few Masters to instruct the children, and most of Ben's training, as rudimentary as it was given his age, had been left to Jaina. 

Despite Ben's talent and her own aptitude to teach him, due largely in part to their bond, Jaina now appreciated even more the frustrations her uncle must have endured trying to instruct her and her brothers at that age.

"No Vong," Ben declared, sounding a bit bewildered and awed by that fact.

"That's right," Jaina said with a confident nod. "No Vong. They can't find us anymore."

"Good," Ben replied sternly, complete with that trademark Skywalker pout that he, like both of her brothers before him, had inherited from his father. "I don't like the Vong."

"I couldn't agree more, little man," Jaina murmured.

An entire galaxy had fallen to the ruthless might of the alien invaders, dozens of worlds had been destroyed, the rest shaped beyond recognition into some perverted image of the long-lost Yuuzhan Vong homeworld.

Billions of sentient billions had been slain during the Vong's campaign to conquer the galaxy as their own, and billions more had been sacrificed to appease their imaginary gods. Whole populations had been wiped out on some worlds, and the survivors had been enslaved, a fate far worse than death.

The galaxy itself had begun to die.

And an Order that had just begun to take root, reborn from the ashes of thousands of years of tradition, had slowly and methodically been burned to the ground.

Most nights, she went into a Jedi trance instead of sleeping, so that the screams would not linger in her ears.

_Stop it,_ Jaina told herself sharply, and shook her head of such morbid memories. _Everything will be different now, and that's what matters._

She could wallow in the past once she secured a better future.

And in order to do that, she needed to focus.

"Let's see," she mused aloud. "If we're where- or should I say when- we're supposed to be, then Ossus has already fallen into Separatist hands." 

"Separatist?" Ben echoed, wrinkling his nose at the big word. "They bad?"

"Yeah, they're the bad guys, little man," Jaina confirmed. "Which is why I need you to be on your very best hiding behavior, okay? I'm going to have to steal a ship for us to get out of here on, and we don't want the bad guys to see us, do we?"

"No." Ben shook his head vehemently. "Don't like bad guys."

"Me neither," Jaina said with a faint smile. "So we're going to hide from them, just like we do the Vong, all right?"

Ben nodded, gray eyes serious and somber.

"I'm going to find you the best hiding place we can," Jaina told him, crouching down to his level. "Then I'm going to leave for just a little bit, and you're going to practice using the Force to hide while I'm gone."

"You gonna come back?" Ben asked, biting his lip.

"I always do, don't I?" Jaina responded gently, and he nodded. "This won't be any different, little man. I'm just going to go find us a good ship, and then we'll get out of here and go far away from the bad men, okay?"

"Fast ship?" Ben requested with childlike eagerness.

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Jaina retorted with a teasing grin. "Of course it'll be a fast ship. The fastest ship on the whole planet."

"Can I fly?"

Despite herself, Jaina chuckled. "Maybe next year, Ben," she replied, ruffling his reddish gold hair. "Little boys aren't supposed to pilot starships."

"Five's not little," Ben said with a little scowl.

"No, five isn't little," Jaina corrected amicably, her chest constricting at the thought of the life he'd been denied, the life that he should have had and all the carefree joys he should have known at that age, instead of the nightmare that Danni had helped them escape. "Wow, you're getting big, you know that? Pretty soon you'll be all grown up." 

"Soon," Ben agreed, placated.

"It'll be too soon for my tastes, little man," Jaina sighed. Ben gave her a quizzical look, not quite understanding what that meant, and she shook her head. "Never mind, kiddo. Let's just get you hidden, okay?"

It didn't take long to find a good sized niche in the ruins for her to stash Ben in temporarily, and his blanket, which he'd had since he was a baby and she'd stashed in her pack, made the little nook more comfortable. Once she'd made certain that he was ready and that he remembered not to come out for anyone or anything except her, Jaina waited just long enough for him to erect his Force shield around himself before she set out.

Leaving Ben was never easy, whenever he wasn't in her sight she was on edge, but they'd fallen into this routine all too often over the years with the Yuuzhan Vong dogging their every step.

And Ben, while scared, would be fine on his own.

She'd been forced to leave him in hiding under much worse circumstances than this.

_I'd take a few thousand Separatist droids over a dozen Vong any day,_ Jaina thought darkly.

Having an enemy that could be fought with the Force would practically be a vacation after all the years she'd spent combating the Yuuzhan Vong.


	3. Chapter 3

**Confederacy Testing Facility, Ossus**

It was a whole different galaxy from the one she knew.

But then again, the galaxy that she had grown up in was different from the one she knew, as well, because once the Yuuzhan Vong had come, nothing had ever been the same.

Still, it was strange to see life on a planet that she knew to be devoid of it.

Through the Force, Jaina Solo was intently aware of her surroundings, of every blade of grass crinkling beneath her boots, of the wind ruffling at her hair as it flowed downward from the mountain range, but most of all the way the planet's every breath teemed with life.

It was different in the future.

Ossus as she'd last seen it, just before Danni had sent her through the wormhole, had been a graveyard. 

The Yuuzhan Vong had decimated the villages and colonies there, even the Knossa Spaceport, in their mad quest to completely eradicate the Ysanna, just as they had done to the Fallanassi and the Jenasaari, the Aing-Tii and the Theran Listeners, the Sunesi and the Korrunai.

Any _Jeedai_, whether they were technically a Jedi or not, was an abomination in the eyes of the enemy.

For proof of that, there was no need to look any farther than Dathomir, and the horrible fate that had been dealt to both the Force witches from which Tenel Ka, the Queen Mother of Hapes and one of Jaina's closest friends, had been descended and their dark counterparts the Nightsisters.

_This time around, though,_ Jaina thought with a surge of fierce determination. _We'll be ready, we'll be prepared._

She would make certain of that if it was the last thing she ever did.

The hair on the back of her neck suddenly bristled, even as the Force tingled a warning, and Jaina dropped to the floor, flattening herself on the roof of the biotics building as a visual scanner droid hovered past.

After waiting several seconds to ensure it was past, she rolled to her feet.

As soon as she'd left Ben, safely hidden in the ruins of the Jedi Library, Jaina had set out in search of signs of the nearest Separatist base, and it hadn't taken her long to locate a droid patrol craft out scouting the area. Knowing it would return to base sooner or later, she'd followed it at a distance, keeping it in sight both visually and with the Force, and it had led her back to the base just as she'd expected.

The base itself was a fairly large facility, with at least a dozen buildings scattered through the complex, mostly consisting of research labs for developing new weapons, droid factories, and several sprawling warehouses that she suspected were used for storing the droids until they were deployed into the field.

Exactly the kind of target she'd been hoping to find.

Pushing off her feet, she made a Force-assisted jump across the divide between buildings, but instead of leaping for the roof of the hangar, Jaina let herself drop about two meters toward the open ventilation window along the duracrete wall.

Her fingers caught the edge of the window and she pulled herself upward and through in one fluid movement.

Perched in the window, palms pressed against the sides for balance, Jaina inspected the upper level of the hangar. A maze of crane tracks crisscrossed the ceiling overhead, and a service catwalk ran around the entire interior of the facility about a meter below the windows, overlooking the hangar floor below.

_Time to find a ship,_ she thought grimly. _And blow this joint before I'm seen._

As therapeutic as a little action would have been, Jaina knew that the sooner she got Ben off of Ossus and to safety the better, so she would have to avoid any confrontation if at possible.

Of course, if the Force willed it, she would be more than happy to oblige.

As Valin used to say whenever she suggested something dangerous, she had some serious adrenaline issues, and as far as Jaina could surmise it was entirely genetic.

_No sense of self-preservation in a Skywalker,_ she could almost hear her father's exasperated groan. _None at all._

But she was also a Solo, and if there was one thing her father had no room to complain about, it was getting into tight situations. He'd had an uncanny knack for getting out of them again, though, and Jaina often tried to imagine what her father would do in a situation before she acted.

Somehow, though, she didn't think blowing up the entire complex was a good idea this time.

Dropping lightly onto the catwalk, Jaina stayed low and moved to the edge, peering down at the floor of the hangar, her gaze sweeping over the dozens of droid fighters, patrol ships and spacecraft below, and the insectoid aliens at work with the machinery.

The droid ships were out of the running automatically, no matter how fast or sleek they were, because they didn't have a functional life-support system onboard. 

After all, droids didn't have to breathe.

She and Ben, on the other hand, were quite attached to that little human quirk.

Patrol ships weren't equipped with hyperdrives, nor did they have any real firepower in case of trouble, at least not by Jaina's standards, so it looked like she was going to have to swipe some poor Separatist commander's personal vessel and her eyes fell on the perfect ship instinctively.

_That'll do nicely,_ Jaina mused with a small, fleeting grin.

A SoroSuub Horizon-class star yacht, fairly generic in design, but they handled beautifully.

Jaina knew firsthand because she'd gotten quite a bit of time in at the controls of a later model that wouldn't even be marketed for another few decades, the _Jade Shadow_.

Mara's pride and joy.

It was hard to think about her aunt and Master at times, but Jaina preferred to remember the woman as she had been before the war, vibrant and strong and fiery, not the way she'd been at the end.

_What would you think of the mess I've gotten myself into this time, Aunt Mara?_ she wondered with a faint smile. Her uncle would have been concerned, worried about the possible consequences and the paradoxes it could create, but Mara would have just done what had to be done.

So that was exactly what Jaina was going to do now.

Besides, even Luke's reaction would have paled in comparison to her twin brother's.

She didn't want to even get started imagining what Jacen would have to say about this crazy venture she'd agreed to, and she was quite certain he'd have plenty to say about it.

Anakin, though, would have thought it was 'wizard'.

It was hard to believe that she hadn't heard her baby brother's trademark exclamation in nearly five years.

_If all goes well, though,_ she reminded herself, pushing aside the flicker of constant grief she felt at the memory of the family that had been stolen from her. _I'll be hearing it again someday._

Someday.

That was what she had to keep her mind on, the goal to keep her focused. 

Someday things would be different.

Grabbing onto the edge of the catwalk, Jaina flipped over the side and dropped to the floor ten meters below, landing softly on the balls of her feet in a crouch, her braid flapping against her back gently.

One of the insectoid aliens lifted its head, as if he half-thought he heard something.

Rising to her feet smoothly, Jaina pulled her lightsaber from her belt and ignited the purple blade.

The alert alien spotted her and shrieked, setting off the rest of his companions, and within moments their wings were a blur as they began to buzz wildly about the room, clucking madly in their panic to escape, and all at once the droids lining the walls came to life, weapons at ready.

By the time they opened fire, Jaina was already moving, her lightsaber flashing.

Years of warfare had schooled her into an efficient and deadly killing machine when the need arose, and a few dozen droids never stood a chance.

_The Sword of the Jedi,_ Jaina thought wryly. _Reduced to clean up._

Still, she knew she shouldn't be complaining- at least the droids weren't determined, fanatically so, to hunt her down to the ends of the universe so that they could ritualistically torture and murder her in a sacrifice that Shimrra himself had called for, vowing he would drink her blood in a toast to the gods.

Compared to the Vong, the Separatists and their droid armies were downright friendly.

Whirling, she cut through the droids rushing her, deflecting blaster bolts from their weapons back at them in the process. Distantly, she was aware of footsteps, that the commotion in the hangar was drawing attention, and she spared a glance up at the catwalk overhead to see a human male in a technician's uniform peering down at her.

"Jedi!" the technician cried, eyes wide as he reeled back from the banister.

Then the alarms started to shriek.

_So much for stealth,_ Jaina thought with a mirthless chuckle.

Darting left, her lightsaber slicing around to sever the midsections of the nearest droids, she planted one booted foot against the wall of the hangar and kicked herself into a backflip to land just behind the droids. The moment her feet touched the ground, she was moving again, spinning and slashing with instinctive rhythm that allowed her to outmaneuver her opponents.

When she finally came to a halt a few moments later, the floor was littered with droid parts and smoking debris.

"Almost too easy," Jaina murmured, eyeing the deserted hangar with a strange sense of disappointment that she knew was unbecoming of a Jedi Knight, but she brushed it off just the same.

She'd spoken too soon, of course.

The Force warned her of their approach just before she heard the noise. 

From a door that slid open in the wall came a trio of droids, curled up so that they looked like gleaming metal wheels as they rolled toward her in a blur. Before they even unfolded into the tripod destroyer droids, Jaina recognized them from her history lessons.

Droidekas.

The combat droids were designed with one purpose, to be killing machines, and between their twin blasters and the personal deflection shields they were equipped with, they had been regarded as one of the terrors of the Clone Wars, a terrible tool of the Confederacy.

_Jaina,_ she told herself. _You have got to stop provoking the Force._

Holding her lightsaber out in front of her with her right hand, Jaina reached to her left hip and removed the second lightsaber she kept on her belt, igniting it.

"All right," she murmured, bringing her brother's lightsaber up to join her own. "Let's see what you've got."

More than happy to oblige, the droidekas opened fire.

By the time that she was able to extinguish her weapons and step back to examine her handiwork, the hangar was a mess and Jaina was out of breath, but she felt more invigorated than she had in a long time.

Her senses told her that more droids were beginning to move towards the hangar to deal with the intruder, and she was half-tempted to stick around and use the opportunity for some much needed venting of frustrations, but she knew that she needed to get back to the ruins of the Jedi Library and collect Ben.

It was one thing to throw her own fate to the wind, but she wouldn't gamble with his.

Mara had known that, of course.

Opening the hatch to the star yacht, Jaina clipped both lightsabers to her belt and hurried up the ramp before it had even finished lowering. She slapped the touchpad to close it behind her as she made her way into the cockpit, not bothering to inspect the interior of the ship- there would be time for that later during their trip through hyperspace.

Instead, she settled herself down in the pilot's seat, powered up the engines and blasted apart the closed hangar doors with the laser cannons.

Then, just for good measure, she turned the guns on the hangar itself once she was clear.

As the building exploded, Jaina turned the ship around and headed in the direction of the ruins of the Jedi Library without giving the hangar so much as a second glance. The way she figured it, by the time that the chaos on base died down enough for anyone to come looking for her, she and Ben would be breaching atmosphere.

It only took a few minutes to reach the ruins and find a suitable landing spot, then Jaina made her way back inside to collect Ben.

As soon as he spotted her when she came into view, Ben released his Force shield and scrambled to his feet, grabbing his blanket and flinging himself at her, wrapping his little arms around her legs tightly.

It was always more emotional for him when she came back than when she left.

After all, he'd seen others, including his mother, leave plenty of times, but eventually they had all stopped coming back, and Jaina knew that it was his greatest fear that one day she, too, would fail to return. 

"Come on, little man," she told him, grabbing their pack off the ground beside him and then taking his small little hand in hers. "I found us a ride out of here."

Ben followed her dutifully out to the ship, the edge of his blanket dragging behind him, and his face lit up at the sight of the sleek star yacht. "Pretty," he announced in approval.

"It's no _Falcon_," Jaina retorted as she lowered the ramp. "But it will do."

Leading the way onto the ship and into the cockpit, she dropped her pack onto the floor and then helped Ben climb into the copilot's seat, which he had already begun to attempt on his own. She'd learned a while back that it was no use to try and get him to take one of the seats in the back, he felt at home in a cockpit, and she could relate.

It was in their blood, after all.

"Where we going?" Ben asked as she strapped him into his crash-webbing.

"We're going home, little man," Jaina replied, checking his restraints to make sure they were tight enough and then rising to her feet.

"Home?" 

Seeing the confusion on his face, she chastised herself mentally, remembering that Ben had no memory of the world he'd been born on, his earliest memory of 'home' was of the hidden installation in the Maw, but since they had been forced to evacuate that a long time ago, and in the years since they'd moved around so much to stay a step ahead of the Yuuzhan Vong that he didn't really have a concept of a physical place to go back to.

For Ben, home began and ended with her.

"We're going to where we used to live when you were just a baby," Jaina explained. "We're going to Coruscant."

"Why?"

"Because," Jaina replied with a forced smile. "We're going to look up some old friends of the family."


	4. Chapter 4

**Senatorial District, Coruscant**

The galaxy was changing.

It was hard to believe sometimes that this was the same Coruscant he'd known three years ago.

But then again, the past three years had been long and weary for all concerned, with the Clone Wars raging and the Separatists threatening to dismantle the Republic at every turn.

Sometimes Bail Organa wondered how Palpatine did it.

The current Chancellor, who had been a senator before replacing Finis Valorum, was under enormous pressure from the Senate for a quick resolution to the war, all the while attempting to maintain some governmental control and direction over the war itself, with dozens of assassination attempts on his life occurring more and more frequently.

Bail did not envy him.

Still, that didn't mean that he was a supporter of the man, either.

Palpatine was a shrewd politician, concerned with staying in office, and that meant he might not have the best interest of the people at heart these days, as he had upon his election nearly fourteen years ago.

Gazing down at the city below, watching as clone troopers patrolled the different levels of Coruscant's bustling metropolis, Bail couldn't help wondering how Valorum might have handled the outbreak of the Separatist movement and the war that accompanied it.

Would things have been better under the former Chancellor?

Or would the Clone Wars have still become such a mess, bringing so much discord to the galaxy, even to the supposedly safe capitol world of Coruscant?

_I should have stayed longer on Alderaan,_ Bail thought bitterly.

His visit home had been brief, and had done little to quell the ache in his heart. On the contrary, it had only made him appreciate the tranquil peace of his homeworld even more and miss it fiercely now that he had returned to the bustling, clinical backdrop of Coruscant.

Two weeks had not been nearly long enough to spend with his wife.

And the memory of her warm embraces, her tender kisses, was not enough to keep the dread at bay as he watched the Republic he loved continue to decay.

When had Coruscant changed so drastically?

And more importantly, how had he missed the changes taking place?

Clone troopers now patrolled every level of the city, and the only beings, regardless of status or position within the government, not stopped for identification checks were Jedi Knights, though there were few adult Jedi left on the capitol these days.

The rest were out among the galaxy, spread thin as they fought and died to preserve the Republic.

Bail's thoughts were often with them, particularly those that he had been fortunate enough to befriend during the past few years of the galactic conflict.

News of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his former Padawan Anakin Skywalker was always a welcome relief.

"You seem troubled."

And not just for himself.

Lifting his head, Bail turned to smile faintly at his fellow senator as Padmé Amidala joined him on the balcony. "The war weighs heavily upon me," he replied. "As it does us all."

Padmé sighed, moving to lean against the railing.

"I wish it would just end," she confessed wearily, eyes lowering. "I wish it was over and done with."

"With any luck, it will be soon enough," Bail replied gently.

The words were for her benefit more than anything, his optimism had begun to fade as of late in the face of the endless fighting, especially after his recent diplomatic envoy to the Outer Rim. Obi-Wan Kenobi had accompanied him on that mission, outfitted with his legion of clone troopers, and Bail had seen firsthand just how the war was pressing down on the Jedi Knights, who had been thrust into the role of soldiers.

It hadn't just been the war, though, his old friend had been plagued with worries for his newly Knighted Padawan, as well, the thought of his boy off facing the galaxy alone a daunting one.

And with a boy like Anakin Skywalker on his hands, Bail could understand the fatherly concern.

After all, with a reputation as the "Hero Without Fear", Anakin was notorious for reckless, insane stunts that, while pulling through for the cause of the Republic, doubtlessly put his life on the life a hundred times over.

No wonder Obi-Wan had been looking a bit more gray than usual the last time Bail had seen him.

"It won't be soon enough," Padmé murmured, her fingers absently toying with the chain about her neck, on which a small carving hung.

"No," Bail agreed, gazing at her appraisingly. "It won't be."

He had known Padmé Amidala for a long time, ever since her appointment to the Galactic Senate, and there was something different about her. The billowing cloak and gown she wore wasn't unusual, it was her standard senatorial garb these days, and it did lend a hint of intimidation to her presence when she was in political mode.

She seemed tired these days, and her face was a little fuller than he'd thought it to be, a little rounder, but that could have just been a trick of his mind.

The real change wasn't physical at all.

Lately, he'd noticed that her mind always seemed to wander, as if she was perpetually distracted.

And she'd worn that same carving around her neck for the past three years, not once had he seen her without it since her return to the capitol a few weeks after the battle of Geonosis.

"Perhaps Palpatine will have good news for us today," Padmé suggested wistfully. "He must have something he wishes to discuss if he called for a meeting with the Loyalist Committee."

"Perhaps," Bail responded flatly.

Or perhaps the Chancellor merely wanted to assure them, for the hundredth time, that everything was under control, that the scales were just about to tip in their favor.

That whatever new amendment was being proposed was for the good of the Republic.

Rumors were circulating about antiwar protests being smothered out, of residences being searched on tips of suspicious behavior, but the Senate didn't seem concerned with any of it. They were much too busy ratifying the Republic constitution to give Palpatine more power to combat the Separatist threat.

One couldn't even go for a walk anymore without being stopped for an identification check.

Freedoms were dwindling, in the name of security, and it disturbed Bail to see how readily the people accepted these changes without so much as a blink of the eye.

A necessary evil, he'd heard Palpatine sigh many times as of late.

Bail wasn't so sure.

"I was wondering where the two of you had slipped off to."

Turning, Bail offered Mon Mothma a wry smile as the Chandrillian senator stepped out onto the balcony to join them, her white robes flowing around her ankles. "I'm afraid I was in need of some fresh air," he explained, nodding at the rest of the Loyalists gathered in the waiting area outside of the Chancellor's office. "When she noticed I was trying to sneak away, Senator Amidala detained me."

"As well she did," Mon Mothma replied lightly. "Or the two of us would be forced to listen to Dar Hallton's exaggerated plight for the fifteenth time this week."

"Has it only been fifteen?" Padmé asked with a grimace.

"It does seem like more, doesn't it?" Mon Mothma responded, chagrined. "But then again, it feels as if we're going around in circles these days in the Senate. As soon as we're through with one proposal, we have five more taking it's place."

"Our focus has been so consumed with the war, we're neglecting our duty to govern the Republic," Bail agreed.

"But to ignore the war, even for a moment, would also be neglectful," Padmé pointed out sharply. "The galaxy is in turmoil and Republic worlds need our aid. We cannot forget those who are suffering while we discuss the options, nor those who are fighting at our behest."

"There is no question that we must support the Jedi to the best of our ability," Mon Mothma assured her. "We are all grateful for their continued sacrifice and devotion. Without them, this war would have been lost."

The gentle rebuke seemed to soothe Padmé's frayed nerves, for she merely nodded and looked out at the city once more, touching a hand to the carving hanging at her neck almost reverently. Bail gazed at her for a moment, aware of Mon Mothma's eyes likewise hovering over their younger contemporary, and watched as Padmé's expression grew distant, as if she was waiting for something.

Or someone.

Whatever it was that she was waiting for, Bail hoped that she found it again soon.

**

* * *

**

**Jedi District, Coruscant**

It was good to be home.

Or as close to home as she was going to get, anyway.

Home, for her, was out of reach and had been for some time. Her family was gone, her friends were dead, and the man she loved had been killed before her eyes.

All she had left was a handful of broken dreams and painful memories.

And the nightmares that never left her.

Coruscant was the Coruscant of her childhood again, though, instead of the world that the Yuuzhan Vong had claimed as their own, the world reshaped and renamed Yuuzhan'tar after the Vong's long-lost homeworld.

The memory of that alien world was still with her, but Jaina Solo could not resist a faint smile at the sight of the glistening, bustling city that had served as the capitol for both the Old Republic and the Empire, and then the New Republic after the Rebel Alliance had secured it.

_It's beautiful,_ she thought wistfully.

Then again, the same could have been said for just about anything untouched by the Yuuzhan Vong in her eyes.

But seeing Coruscant in its former glory still caused her heart to skip a beat.

It had been easier than she'd expected to gain access into the capitol world's atmosphere. Though she obviously didn't know the current passwords to get through the Republic's strict security, which had only increased due to the Clone Wars, she knew the protocol all too well, from the years that her mother had served as Chief of State.

And it didn't hurt that throwing her status as a Jedi Knight around still counted for something in this era.

In the future that she knew, it would have guaranteed she was turned away.

That or captured and handed over to the enemy.

Ben was transfixed with the glistening buildings and the busy hoverlanes, staring up as high as his little neck would cran and pointing at something new that caught his eye every couple of minutes. This was the first time that he had ever seen Coruscant, at least that he could remember, he'd been just an infant when the capitol fell and he'd been lucky enough not to see it after the Yuuzhan Vong had laid claim to it.

If only Jaina had been so fortunate.

The last time she'd set foot on Coruscant had been the beginning of the end, the turning point where everything had been hanging in the balance, and everything had been lost.

It had been a day of defeat and grief, for all.

Coruscant had not been liberated, it remained the jewel of the Yuuzhan Vong's conquest. The combined fleet of the Gallactic Federation of Free Alliances had been all but decimated, more than half its firepower wiped out in the blink of an eye. The great hope that so many, Jacen and Luke included, had been counting on to stem the tide of the war had been destroyed, as much by the "good guys" as by the enemy.

And the Jedi Order had lost its most brilliant flame.

_Through the horde of Slayers, she saw it happen. _

Shimrra produced a lightsaber from his hide cloak, a lightsaber that was so familiar it might as well have been her own, which suddenly felt impossibly heavy in her hands. Her chest had all but exploded with grief as the purple light from her baby brother's cherished weapon bathed across their uncle's face.

With no choice, Luke grabbed Shimrra's arm, and the amphistaff he'd been holding back plunged into his chest, tearing muscle and piercing vulnerable flesh.

And when he screamed, both twins screamed with him.

So much had gone so wrong so quickly, that sometimes Jaina still found it hard to comprehend.

They had been optimistic going into things, for the first time in years it seemed like the Force had been truly with them, that the end of the war was finally upon them.

If only things had ended differently.

_Focus,_ Jaina told herself harshly, forcing back the grief that was beginning to well deep in her chest at the memory of that dreadful, doomed day. _You have a job to do._

It hadn't been too difficult to locate the Jedi Temple, she'd had a good sense of where it was located before her arrival on Coruscant, thanks to Jacen's story of his experiences with Vergere and how she'd showed him the ruins of the once glorious complex. She'd even managed to get an impression, conveyed to her from her brother, and to him by Vergere, of what the Jedi Temple had looked like during the Fosh's time.

Despite that, she'd been unprepared for the sight of it, and the emotions it would stir within her.

It stood alone in its section of the planet-wide city, a towering edifice capped by a crown of five spires, as breathtaking as she had always imagined it to have been.

This place contained the history of her people, it was a living embodiment of everything that her family had been a part of from her grandfather's first steps within its walls. Thousands of years of Jedi tradition lived inside those hallowed halls, a symbol of the great Order that had served the galaxy for so long.

It was disheartening to know that they had no idea they were balancing precariously on a precipe, on the brink of their own extinction and oblivious to their own weakness.

_It was my blood that drove this Order to its knees,_ Jaina thought evenly. _My blood that toppled an Empire and liberated the galaxy._

If the fate of the galaxy and the future awaiting it could be changed, it was going to have to be her blood that set it all into motion, as always.

"Wizard," Ben breathed beside her, staring up at the central spire of the Temple with wide eyes, and despite herself Jaina smiled at his innocence.

Had she ever been like that?

That gentle, that untouched by the harshness of life, untainted by the shadows?

Her entire life had been one conflict after another, if it wasn't someone trying to take over the galaxy and using her and her brothers as pawns to manipulate Chief of State Leia Organa Solo, then it was someone who'd gotten it into their heads to turn the grandchildren of Darth Vader into weapons of the dark side.

And then the Yuuzhan Vong had come, bent on cleansing the galaxy and reshaping it in their own image.

So Jaina had grown hard, rough, like durasteel. She'd done ambiguous things in the name of survival, for the greater good of those around her.

She wasn't, she was all too aware, a very good Jedi.

Her skin bore the scars of war, displayed for all the galaxy to see, but it wasn't the scars on her hands or any of the others that she felt most keenly, rather the scars on the inside.

The ones that only the Force could perceive.

_I wonder what the Jedi of this Order will think when they get a load of me,_ Jaina thought with a mirthless chuckle, all too aware of the fact that she hardly resembled what they would expect of a Jedi Knight.

Gone were the traditional tunic and robes that served as the uniform of the Jedi Order, they'd become a death mark for anyone seen wearing them, and she'd long since run out of them anyway. Though well-made and sturdy, the garments could only hold up for so long under the strain of war, after all.

These days, she looked more like a smuggler than a Jedi.

A fact which her father would undoubtedly be infinitely proud of.

In fact, the only thing about her appearance that would even lend itself to the suggestion that she had any affiliation with the Jedi Order at all was the unmistakable cylinders of two lightsaber hilts at her belt.

It probably didn't help that she was standing in the middle of the complex's courtyard, gawking like a tourist from some backwater world in the Outer Rim.

Not that she had even the faintest clue where to go once she did get her feet working again, anyway. She was bound to garner some curious looks as soon as she stepped inside the arched doors ahead, and it would only become even more obvious that she was out of place when she couldn't figure out where she was supposed to go.

_Should have thought this part of the plan out a little better,_ she mused flatly.

Just when she was contemplating whether she should look for someone to ask for directions or just stride into the place like she owned it- and leaning towards the latter- she heard a strange tapping sound coming from somewhere behind her, so she turned around to find its source.

And found herself staring down at a diminutive little green being dressed in Jedi robes approaching, a gimmer stick in hand and using it as if it were a cane.

Jaina could only stare.

The little being came to a halt just in front of her, no taller than Ben, and leaned against his gimmer stick, staring back at her with a shrewdly appraising expression on his wizened face.

"Felt a disturbance in the Force, I did," Yoda said without preamble. "And now, here you are."


	5. Chapter 5

**Jedi Temple, Coruscant**

Silence hung over the room.

It was an endless sort of silence, full of gravity and weight.

There was no rushing this kind of thing, it was a matter that required both delicacy in its delivery and a flexible period of time for it to be comprehended, and so she merely waited.

Slivers of light poked through the covered windows, slanting across the tiled floor.

The room was small and plain, the walls and floor both a neutral gray, adding to the sterile feel of the environment, and the dimness of the room gave off a cool, meditative impression. It brought to mind the barren bunkrooms of the old Imperial base on Nirauan, where they'd briefly taken shelter from the Yuuzhan Vong.

_Mom would hate it,_ Jaina Solo thought with a touch of bittersweet amusement.

In truth, she wasn't too fond of it herself.

She had known coming into this situation that the Jedi Order of the Old Republic had been very different from the Order that she'd been raised in, but she'd still been startled by how dull and bland the rooms were. She'd been expecting something more, or at the very least different, from the living quarters of the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, she supposed.

But the aforementioned Grand Master didn't seem to notice that his room resembled a medical facility more than a home, so she kept that observation to herself.

At the moment, Jaina was purposefully avoiding looking at Yoda.

It hadn't been easy to have this conversation, to say the things that needed to be said, things that would strike the diminutive Jedi Master as surely as if she'd just stabbed him in the chest with her lightsaber, and she didn't want to see the pain in his expression as he came to terms with the terrible fate awaiting his Order.

Mostly, though, she didn't want him to see the guilt in her own eyes.

Because as bad as the news she'd given him was, there was more that she was keeping from him, most of it even worse.

In the final days before Danni's success on Ossus, Jaina had struggled with how much to reveal to the Jedi once she made it to the past. There was so much that could change everything, and she had no idea how much they needed to know, and who needed to know what, but she was certain that she could not come right out and just unload every bit of knowledge she had into their laps.

The results could have been catastrophic.

Instead, she was playing a game of dejarik with the fate of the galaxy.

Picking and choosing which pieces to move at what moment, trying to plan out her moves several steps in advance, all the while taking into consideration every possible outcome of situation after situation.

_You're talking about gambling with the lives of billions of beings, Jaina._

Not that she'd needed Tahiri to tell her that.

Jaina had been all too aware, from the moment the idea was first proposed as nothing but a hypothetical theory, of just what kind of risks it would entail. What the cost might be to everything and everyone she'd ever known, both on a personal level and on a broader scope.

Husbands and wives might never meet.

Children might never exist.

Victories that had secured peace and justice for so many might unravel.

Every action that she took or didn't take could have serious consequences on the future, could drastically change reality as she knew it.

_Why, I might even unmake my own existence,_ Jaina mused wryly.

She tried not to dwell on that possibility, tried not to think about all the people whose lives she was meddling with and how easily she could screw things up for so many people without even realizing it. So many of her friends might never cross her path now, that is if any of them managed to be born at all after she changed the direction of the galaxy.

Would Tenel Ka's parents ever meet?

Would her own?

It was difficult not to think about all the thousands of ways that things could go wrong, but Jaina had long since made up her mind to let go of that responsibility and entrust it to the Force.

There was no other way to keep her tentative grip on her sanity.

A soft giggle from the other side of the room drew her attention, and despite the heavy burden on her shoulders, Jaina smiled faintly at the sight of Ben seated on a small, cushioned ottoman and happily distracted from "adult things" by his levitation toy.

The collapsible structure was metallic and flexible, made to bend and twist in just about any direction a young child could think of, with a dozen rotating spheres attached to its appendages.

It had been a gift from Jacen, who'd built it for their little cousin while they were on the run from the Yuuzhan Vong.

The toy served a dual purpose, though, not only did it keep Ben occupied for a while, it also continued to hone his skills at the same time.

Little Jysella Horn, who had inherited her family's lack of talent for telekinesis, had loved to sit with Ben on the dirt floor of whatever ramshackle hideout they'd found that week and watch him move the toy through the air. She'd been especially fond of giving instructions on which piece to swing, which to bend, which to spin.

They'd been good friends, Ben and Jysella.

It had been difficult for Jaina to tell him that Jysella, like her mother Mirax and grandfather Booster, was gone after the destruction of the _Errant Venture_.

That same news had all but destroyed Corran and Valin.

_My Mom is dead, Jaina... how can she be dead? And Jys... she was just a kid, just a baby..._

So many mothers had lost their lives in the face of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, so many children's lives had been cut short, snuffed out like nothing more than a puff of smoke in the rain.

_Where is the Force now? Why has it forsaken us?!_

Near the end, the younger ones had begun to break, to lose their faith, and Jaina couldn't blame them. She'd had no words of comfort or consolation for young Sannah that day, as the girl stood before her covered in the blood of friends whose bodies they had been forced to leave behind. There had been no Jedi platitudes or wisdom that she could impart, for she had no answers to the questions haunting Sannah.

Not when they haunted Jaina, as well.

Forcing herself out of the past, lest its icy clutches sink claws into her flesh and take hold with a grip that she could not escape, Jaina focused her gaze on the diminutive being seated across from her.

"I know this sounds crazy..." she said quietly.

Old eyes lifted to her face, full of wisdom that had not come without a price, and she trailed off under Yoda's gaze, not knowing what else to say.

What could she say, really?

"Crazy, yes," the great Jedi Master murmured with a weak chuckle, but there was no amusement in his voice, only the distinctive cracking of a being who knew the horrible, inescapable truth. "But believe you, I do."

Jaina's shoulders sagged in relief.

Until that moment, she hadn't realized how desperate she was for him to understand. She didn't know what she would have done if he'd thought her words to lies, or worse still, the product of a deranged mind. What proof could she offer to him of the dark future she prophesied?

A blood test would confirm her identity, but little else.

"Dark is the future you herald," Yoda said lowly, voice thick and brittle. "Understand, I do not, how fail to foresee this we did..."

"The dark side clouds everything," Jaina offered, sympathy lending an uncharacteristic gentleness to her words.

After all, her own Order had failed just as greatly as its predecessor in the end.

"Yes," Yoda agreed, nodding his head somberly. "Long the dark side has been in the shadows at work. Always just out of sight lurking, seeking an impossible victory..."

"Not so impossible," Jaina pointed out evenly.

"No, so impossible not," Yoda murmured, his head bowing as if he could no longer hold it upright, too heavy was the weight that now rested upon his shoulders.

_Now you know,_ Jaina thought grimly. _Now you understand why I've come._

And what she had to do to prevent it.

She felt some measure of pity for the wizened old Jedi Master, regretted that she had to crush his spirit with news of what the future- the one that had given birth to the Sword of the Jedi, a sword forged in fire and stone- had in store for his beloved Order, but it would have been impossible to keep him in the dark.

If her plan was going to work, she needed Yoda in her corner.

And so she'd told him everything- almost everything, anyway- in grim detail.

That she was the granddaughter of Anakin Skywalker, from a future he would not have recognized. That his Order had been purged in the fires of the Sith and the Republic that he held dear burned by the Empire; that after over two decades, the Rebellion had toppled the Empire and built a New Republic once the Sith were destroyed; that the dark times had returned in the form of an alien race bent on conquering the galaxy and reshaping it in their own image.

An alien race that didn't exist within the Force.

The disbelief that had registered on the diminutive Jedi Master's face was one Jaina could relate to all too well. It had been hard for the Jedi in her own time to comprehend it, as well. How could the Yuuzhan Vong be alive and yet cut off from the Force, which was life itself?

Of course, now she knew the answer, but it was too late.

Zonoma Sekot, the best hope the galaxy had to restrain the Yuuzhan Vong, had been killed as much by the Alliance as by the Yuuzhan Vong.

Alpha Red had been the galaxy's damnation, just as Vergere had claimed it would be.

The mention of the Fosh Jedi Knight who had both manipulated, tortured and sustained her brother during his time as a Yuuzhan Vong captive had sparked recognition from Yoda, as Jaina had suspected it might. When Vergere surrendered herself to the Yuuzhan Vong in order to spare Zonoma Sekot, her disappearance must have left the Jedi Order baffled.

Now they knew what had become of their lost Jedi.

Jaina wasn't sure which she'd expected to be more difficult for Yoda to come to terms with- the Yuuzhan Vong threat, or the terrible fate awaiting his Order- but his ability to accept both convinced her that he could be trusted with the one secret she was prepared to protect and safeguard with every ounce of fierceness inside of her.

Too much rested on that knowledge to share it with just anyone.

"My grandfather was a good man," she pronounced softly, but with a tight firmness that made it clear she would have words with anyone who spoke otherwise. "A good man with good intentions. But, as my Aunt Mara was fond of saying, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'..." her throat tightened a little of its own accord, both at the mention of her aunt and mentor, and at the painful subject she was disclosing. "He fell into darkness and became a plague on the galaxy."

"A plague, yes," Yoda agreed darkly, but did not say more than that.

"But he came back," Jaina pointed out evenly. "The love of a son for his father, and a father for his son, was enough to pull him from those dark depths. And he fulfilled his destiny in the end, bringing balance to the Force and shattering the darkness with light."

"Undo his crimes, one sacrifice does not."

Jaina pursed her lips, biting back the sharp retort on the edge of her tongue.

Attacking the Jedi Master's opinion would only serve to further alienate him from her cause, if she was going to sway him over to her line of thinking, she needed to get him to sympathize with her, to understand where she was coming from.

She'd learned something from her mother's political disposition, at least.

"No," Jaina agreed. "It didn't. Nothing could have erased all the evil he'd done as a servant of the dark side. But in that same regard, not even all the evil he did could have erased all the good- and there was a lot of good, both at the beginning and end of his life."

Yoda did not respond, and she chose to take that as a good sign.

"I know this is difficult to accept," she said carefully. "You're in the midst of a war and here I arrive bearing news that your worst fears came to pass, that you were betrayed by one of your own, but Vader and Anakin are not the same man. The dark side... it devours you, it eats away at everything good and strong inside of you until there's nothing left but an empty husk for it to inhabit."

"Know of this intimately, you do," Yoda observed, his eyes narrowing.

Jaina met his knowing gaze head-on, without so much as blinking. "You have no idea how intimately," she responded in a neutral tone.

For a long moment, they regarded one another in silence, and Jaina wondered idly what the venerable old Jedi Master saw when he looked at her. Did he see the things she herself saw when she looked in the mirror? Did he see the scars, both those on the inside and on the out? Did he see the shadow in her heart, that only her will and trust in the Force kept buried?

"I know what he's going through," she said softly, with an inexplicable quiver to her voice that she dismissed as exhaustion from the trip through time. "I know what it's like to stand in his shoes. To feel the darkness stirring inside of you, to know it's ever just under the surface... and to be afraid of what might happen if you were to let it loose... or what might happen if you didn't."

And she did know, better than perhaps anyone.

_"Don't go down this road, Jaina. You've been here before, you know what it will do to you. Nothing good can come from the shadows."_

"Good? Who said anything about 'good', Kyp? Look around! The Yuuzhan Vong have won! Uncle Luke is dead, the Alliance is dead, the Jedi are dead, the whole stang galaxy is dead! I don't give a kriff about 'good' anymore. What I want is payback. I can't stop the Vong, I can't keep them from decimating the rest of the galaxy, but I can sure as hell make them pay for every inch of it with blood!"

There was something weary in Yoda's eyes now, something almost sad, and his ears drooped slightly.

"How expect to save him can you," the diminutive Master asked quietly, with something akin to pity in his voice. "When in need of saving yourself, you are?"

"I don't need to be saved," Jaina replied flatly. "I've faced the demon inside of myself and made peace with what I found. There's darkness in all of us, Master Yoda, even you... it's not about banishing that darkness or containing it, because that's just not possible, it's a part of the Force, of life itself. It's about finding something that overpowers it. Something good and pure and full of light."

She glanced again at Ben, who appeared to be playing innocently with his levitation toy, but she knew his sensitivity to the Force was picking up on the undercurrents in the room.

"My something is that little boy over there," she murmured. "And Anakin's something is going to be his family."

"By your own words, enough to keep him from the dark side they were not," Yoda said shrewdly.

"That was then, this is now," Jaina replied without hesitation. "And things are going to happen differently, I'm going to make them happen differently. My mere presence in this time could affect events more than I can begin to imagine."

"Arrogance, it is, to assume so much."

"Not arrogance, Master Yoda," Jaina assured him. "Reality. Every breath I draw here could change something in the future, and there could be disastrous results... why do you think I haven't told you the identity of the Sith Lord who's pulling all the strings? We both know that I have the answers you seek."

At the mention of what she was withholding, Yoda's eyes darkened.

"The deaths of many Jedi this knowledge could prevent," he spoke lowly. "End this war, it could."

"It won't end the war," Jaina replied, but did not deny she was condemning many a Jedi on the front lines to the fate that the Force had dealt them the last time around.

For the greater good, sacrifices would have to be made.

"If anything," she said. "It will only heighten it." Sensing that Yoda was about to argue, so she cut him off. "What do you think would happen if the Sith Lord discovered the Jedi Order was onto him?" she inquired. "He wouldn't flee, he would wage an all-out war on these halls- open war, not this covert bantha fodder you're dealing with now."

"Prepared to meet this threat, we are."

Jaina snorted, unable to contain her mirth. "Like sith you are."

The idea was laughable, really, in a bitter and ironic sort of way. Maybe the Jedi's confidence about their ability to handle the Sith wasn't so much arrogance as it was naivety- they had no idea their greatest enemy was already seated on his throne, biding his time before seizing the crown.

Only one man had a chance of stopping him, and Jaina's job was to ensure he did just that.

"This Sith Lord knows his enemies, he knows your weaknesses and your strengths, and how to play them both accordingly," Jaina explained bluntly, putting the full-weight of the Force behind her words to make Yoda feel the grim truth of them. "He won't underestimate you, so don't be foolish enough to underestimate him. He's had decades to plan for this, to prepare for every possible course of events."

Pausing for a moment to let that sink in, Jaina then arched one eyebrow pointedly.

"Don't you think that it would be wise for the Jedi to at least take a few months to prepare themselves?" she asked, unable to keep a slight twinge of sarcasm from creeping into her voice.

"Concerned with preparing the Jedi, you are not," Yoda responded after a few seconds of silence, and once again his eyes seemed to bore right through her. "Came here for young Skywalker, you did."

"You're right," Jaina admitted without remorse. "I did come here for Anakin, and he is my first priority. Everything else, including the preservation of your Order, is a secondary concern. The Jedi have served the Force for twenty-five thousand years, Master Yoda, but the galaxy has changed around you, and you haven't adapted at all. That's why you were so easy to pick off last time, and that's why the Yuuzhan Vong will plow right through your ranks when they come- that is, if your Order is still around... my grandfather will have to decide that."

Once, she might have gentled her words, if only out of respect for the diminutive Jedi Master, but the gentleness had long since been driven out of Jaina by the war.

She had a job to do, and she'd do it by any means necessary.

"So certain you are, hmm, that save him you can?" Yoda murmured, and though his words were spoken softly, they were clearly meant as the sharp rebuke she took them as. "When fail others did before you?"

"I know there's darkness in him," Jaina said evenly. "I know that you've seen it, that you've felt it, that you've worried over it since the day he first set foot in this Temple. But Vader doesn't exist here yet, and he's not going to. Last time, Anakin was vulnerable to the Sith's machinations. Even surrounded by those who loved him best of all, he was essentially left to face them alone."

_Though you stand tall and alone..._

Pushing aside the ghostly whisper of the words that had branded her as surely as a lightsaber burn, Jaina pursed her lips in quiet determination. "This time I'm going to make sure that all those weapons the Sith turned against him are neutralized before it ever comes to that."

Yoda gave her a curious look, prodding for an explanation, and she paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to best word what she was saying.

"Secrets breed like poison," she said at last. "They hook themselves deep in the core of you and slowly twist your insides, deeper and deeper, until it feels like you're choking in them." Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed, pulling the scarred skin at the corner of her right eye taught. "I'm going to bring those secrets to light, drag everything that needed to be said a lifetime ago to the surface before it's too late. I don't care what it takes, I am not going to let his soul go without a fight. I can save him, I can keep him from falling, I know it. But I have to do it my way, on my terms, or we could lose him just as surely as you did the first time around."

The diminutive Jedi Master studied her intently for a long moment, little hands folded in thought.

"Believe in him, you do," Yoda observed at last.

"I don't have a choice in the matter," Jaina replied evenly. "We need him. And I'm not just talking about my family or the Jedi Order or even the Republic. When the Yuuzhan Vong come, and they will come, Anakin may very well be our only hope."

"Perhaps yes, perhaps no," Yoda said, nodding his head absently. "In time, revealed it will be."

"In time, all things are."

For the first time, Yoda smiled, though she could not have said why. "Tired, you must be," the Jedi Master suggested, grunting as he hobbled to his feet, and Jaina followed suit, rising in one fluid motion. "Find empty quarters for you, we must, food to fill your stomachs. Later, the Council I will convene, and talk more of these things we will."

"But not of Vader," Jaina reminded him of their agreement.

Yoda nodded, reaching for his gimmer stick. "Yes, yes. Of Skywalker's fate, no council will I keep. Between the two of us, this knowledge will remain."

"And one more thing," Jaina said flatly. "My identity."

"Wish to conceal it, you do?" Yoda inquired with a frown, clearly disapproving.

"No one else can know who I am," Jaina insisted, leaving no room for argument. "Not the Council, not Obi-Wan Kenobi, and especially not my grandfather. Tell them I'm the only survivor of the future Order, tell them I drew the short straw among the refugees and got elected to come, I don't care. But Anakin is not, under any circumstances, to know I'm his granddaughter."

Yoda stared at her pensively. "Uncover the truth, he will in time," the diminutive Jedi Master warned.

"Maybe," Jaina conceded, and promptly ignored the small twinge in her chest at the thought. "But he'll have to figure it out on his own. There's too much on the line, too much at stake, to risk revealing things he doesn't need to know. I have enough future complications to worry about as it is. Who knows what trouble my identity could cause?"

Sighing, Yoda shook his head. "Disagree with you, I do, but respect your decision I will."

"Thank you," Jaina whispered.

"Now," Yoda said with a hoarse little chuckle, turning his attention to Ben and hobbling toward her cousin. "Come, younglings, hungry I am."

"Me, too," Ben declared, his levitation toy now forgotten.

"Then eat we must, hmm?" Yoda surmised, and gave Jaina an impatient look, tapping his gimmer stick on the floor to make a point and eliciting giggles from Ben.

Rolling her eyes, Jaina followed them out of the room.

She had a feeling that this was going to be a very long day.


	6. Chapter 6

**Talhalla Plains, Jarlath**

Night was anything but still on Jarlath.

In the distance, explosions continued to rain down upon the Talhalla Plains as the fighting raged on, and bursts of laser fire danced along the horizon like Galliornian firedrakes, visible as hazy blurs through the smoke pressing down on the encampment.

There was no peace to be found here.

Sighing wearily, Obi-Wan Kenobi drew his robes closer around himself and turned to enter the tent which was serving as the Jedi sleeping quarters during this campaign.

Four sleeping pallets lined the tent, one along each wall. They were flat, worn from use and terribly uncomfortable, but they served their purpose- and there had been very little time for sleeping since their arrival on Jarlath.

In the center of the tent was a portable plastisteel table, with datapads scattered across its surface around a holoprojector and a subspace transmitter.

Anakin stood studying the map of the Jarla Sector currently flickering in the air above the holoprojector.

"You need rest," the younger man said almost as soon as Obi-Wan had stepped into the tent, without looking up from what he was doing.

"As do we all, Padawan," Obi-Wan replied.

With a small gesture of his hand, Anakin shut down the holoprojector, extinguishing the map, and turned to face him, his eyes narrowed and mouth set in the stubborn look that Obi-Wan had come to know intimately over their fourteen years together.

"I can stay watch," Anakin said flatly. "You should get some sleep."

"With all that racket out there?" Obi-Wan scoffed, inclining his head toward the flap of the tent and the explosions taking place beyond. "Not likely."

"A trance, then," Anakin suggested.

Sensing his former Padawan's concern, Obi-Wan favored his friend with a small smile. "Later," he promised. "For now, I want to assess our options. We still have a planet to secure, after all."

"Don't remind me," Anakin muttered.

Obi-Wan ignored that remark, crossing the tent to pick up one of the datapads lying on the table. He understood Anakin's frustration, they had been on Jarlath longer than anticipated and there was no telling when they would be able to leave. The leader of the planetary rebellion, Ahkar Soer, had been killed in battle two days before, thanks to some quick thinking on Anakin's part, and most of the droid army supplied by Count Dooku had been destroyed, but Soer's followers were still resisting, still fighting.

And so the Jedi team assigned to this campaign would remain to assist the local volunteer forces, led by the aging but determined Major Fellor, until the resistance was neutralized.

_Another week, at least,_ Obi-Wan sighed to himself.

He and Anakin had been out here in the Outer Rim for months now, they hadn't seen Coruscant since their return to the Temple for Anakin's Knighting almost five months prior, and Obi-Wan longed to be back within the tranquil, hallowed halls of the Jedi Order.

Anakin, he knew, ached to return to Coruscant just as strongly, but for an entirely different reason.

And if the endless stack of holos in the boy's pack was any indication, there was a certain young senator back on the capitol anticipating his homecoming just as desperately.

As the newest member of the Jedi Council, Obi-Wan knew that he should bring his former Padawan's activities to the attention of the rest of the Jedi Order's governing body, but he could not bring himself to do so. His loyalties were divided on the matter, for Anakin's happiness meant more to him than his own, and it was clear that the one thing that made Anakin happier than anything else was Padmé Amidala.

And so he and Anakin continued their little game, he pretending not to notice and Anakin pretending he wasn't hiding anything in the first place.

"According to our scouts' reports," Anakin said, moving to the holoprojector and turning it back on, this time bringing up a holographic map of Jarlath's landscape instead of the planetary system. "Most of the resistance forces are centered here along the Inekteh Ridge."

"There's not much out there," Obi-Wan observed with a frown.

"No," Anakin agreed. "But the ridge gives them a degree of protection from attack- and it gives them the high ground in a fight."

"So it does," Obi-Wan murmured, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"But if we come at them from the north," Anakin pointed out, gesturing with his finger on the holographic map. "Then we take away that advantage. It would take longer to get into position, a day or two, I think, but it would mean the fighting would be over sooner and with less casualties on our side."

It could still take Obi-Wan by surprise to hear the maturity in his former Padawan's voice, to witness firsthand that Anakin was a man now, full of strength and confidence, all traces of boyhood driven out of him by the war. His heart simultaneously swelled with pride and joy, and ached with bittersweet regrets, in such moments.

How had his boy grown up so fast?

It seemed like just yesterday that Anakin had been an inquisitive nine year-old, eager to learn and see everything at once, pestering him about Form I lightsaber combat, and now Anakin was a Jedi Knight... where had all the time gone?

Pursing his lips, Obi-Wan studied the map for a moment, then nodded. "A good plan," he told his former Padawan. "When Masters Secura and Fisto return from their shift, we'll discuss how to do it."

"Of course, Master," Anakin replied, glancing at the flaps of the tent. "If it's all right with you, I'm going to-"

"Tinker with your fighter," Obi-Wan finished knowingly, and Anakin smiled ruefully. "Go ahead, it will do you some good to focus your mind, and tinkering does seem to work better than meditation for you. Especially these days."

"And you?" Anakin prompted. "What about that trance you agreed to?"

"I will get to it shortly, you have my word," Obi-Wan assured him, then paused, his lips twitching upward before adding a wry, "_Master_."

Anakin rolled his eyes. "Sometimes I worry about you, Obi-Wan," he said sarcastically over his shoulder as he slipped out of the command tent.

"Sometimes I worry about you, as well, Padawan," Obi-Wan murmured softly.

And he truly did.

Even without the Force, he would have been able to sense the danger and uncertainty that lay ahead, the treacherous road his friend would have to walk. Anakin was the Chosen One, born of the Force and gifted with the most intimate connection to its waters, which made him a prime target for the Sith.

How many times had the dark ones tried to bring about his death over the years, and not just since the war started, but during Anakin's childhood, as well?

The war just gave them better means and hundreds of opportunities to try again.

As if that wasn't enough to give a Master gray hairs, there was the prophecy itself to consider. No one truly knew what balance meant or how it was to come about, not even Master Yoda, all they knew was that Anakin had been born for greatness.

Obi-Wan feared the burden of that destiny.

Anakin had grown into a powerful Jedi, strong and determined, full of compassion for those in need and fiercely loyal to the Republic, but he had weaknesses.

It would be Obi-Wan's job to protect those weaknesses, from anyone and anything that posed a threat to his boy.

They were more than just teacher and student now, more than pseudo-father and son. The war had forged their lives into one, uniting them in a closeness that Obi-Wan had never experienced before, not even with Qui-Gon Jinn. They were partners, the perfect compliment to one another in every way.

And Obi-Wan was proud to call Anakin his best friend.

His brother.

When the Council had appointed him to their open chair, Obi-Wan had been humbled. It was a great honor, one he was not sure he deserved, but Anakin had just snorted and said it was about time. His former Padawan still longed for a spot on the Council himself, but Anakin had been nothing but proud that day.

Yet they both realized that his appointment to the Council meant their lives would forever change.

When the curtain fell on the war, their time together would come to an end. Obi-Wan would remain on Coruscant, serving the Order by sitting on the Council, and Anakin would continue to venture out into the galaxy, righting wrongs and maintaining peace and justice, but this time he would be on his own.

It was hard to imagine not working alongside his friend on a daily basis, fighting side-by-side in perfect formation.

A chime from the subspace transmitter broke into his reverie, and Obi-Wan shook his head to clear his thoughts before turning to examine the message flashing across the screen from Coruscant.

It took a long moment for the news to sink in.

Then he turned and hurried from the tent, heading for the small strip of field where four Jedi starfighters glistened in the moonlight.

Anakin looked up as he approached, a curious look on his face.

And Obi-Wan smiled, weary and exhausted, but the first genuine smile that had crossed either of their faces in weeks.

"We're going home."

* * *

**Jedi Temple, Coruscant**

All was silent within the Council Chambers.

The Force was tangible with disbelief, shock, a numb sense of dread that couldn't be shaken off.

Most of the Jedi Masters present stared at Yoda with wide eyes, reeling from his pronouncement, but it was not the diminutive Master that Mace Windu's gaze was drawn to.

It was the young woman he had just introduced.

A child, really, hardly more than a Padawan in age.

But if what Yoda claimed was true, then this girl was the last of the Jedi, the only survivor of the future Order on a desperate crusade to prevent the extermination of their people at the hands of an alien race that had been stripped of the Force and so existed outside of its power.

It was inconceivable, and yet he could sense the truth behind it.

Feeling his stare, the one called Jaina Solo turned, ever so slightly, in his direction, her dark eyes locking onto him, and despite himself, Mace felt unsettled under the chilling intensity of her gaze.

Then the girl turned away and began to address the Council herself.

"I know this is a difficult truth to accept," she said evenly, and her voice was older, harder, than Mace would have expected. "In my time, it wasn't any easier, but you must come to terms with it now if we are to have any chance of preparing this Order for what lies ahead."

There was a surprising depth of maturity, hard-earned and grim, to this girl. She was small, both in stature and build, and quite lovely in appearance, despite the scar over her right eye.

In the Force, though, she was hard and rough, like a fortress of durasteel.

"The Yuuzhan Vong are merciless and bloodthirsty," she continued, in a clipped and clinical manner. "They will ravage this galaxy until it is nothing but ash and dust and bones. They are like no enemy that you or this Republic has ever dealt with- thousands of generations have been bred and molded for nothing but war and conquest. If you are not prepared, they will slaughter you."

"Surely our number-" Agen Kolar began.

"Insignificant next to the millions of Vong warriors they'll bring," Solo cut him off shortly, unapologetically blunt. "The New Republic had a formidable military, and the Yuuzhan Vong swept right through them. Your Order has already suffered high losses because of the Clone Wars, even at full strength there wouldn't be enough of you."

"But you think that you can prepare the Jedi to face such a threat?" Kolar asked skeptically.

Something flickered across the girl's face, a shadow that moved too quickly to be discerned, and her jaw hardened, eyes narrowing with cold fierceness. "For your sake," she replied lowly. "Let's hope so."

"Why did the Jedi not prepare in your time?" Shaak Ti inquired, her voice as gentle and soothing as ever.

"The Vong came without warning, with overwhelming forces and weaponry," Solo replied flatly. "There weren't enough Jedi Knights left to stop them."

"Left?" Ki-Adi-Mundi echoed incredulously.

Solo's jaw tightened in a grim set, her mouth thinned sharply. "Your Order is not my Order," she informed them. "Mine was a fledgling, newly reborn from the ashes of yours. The Jedi Order of the Old republic was completely and utterly decimated, every last Jedi, from the Masters to the younglings, was wiped out."

The Force spiked with the horror etched across the faces of the Jedi Masters in attendance, and Mace felt his stomach drop, his chest twisting with a cold, primal dread.

_Every last Jedi..._

"It cannot be," Stass Allie gasped, her hand going to her mouth.

"Impossible!" Even Piell cried.

The others murmured various pronouncements of disbelief, refusing to believe it, even as the truth of the matter revealed itself to them through the Force.

"How could this happen?" Shaak Ti whispered.

"The Sith," Solo answered shortly, as if she couldn't believe they had to ask. "How else?"

From Mace's left, Yoda cleared his throat quietly, giving their visitor from the future a disapproving look over the top of his gimmer stick. For a moment, Solo simply stared back at him, unresponsive, then sighed.

"You were set up," she elaborated begrudgingly. "The Sith have been planning your extermination for decades, long before you even knew they had returned. Everything that's happened, including the Clone Wars, has all been just another part of their plan."

Mace closed his eyes, wishing he could block out her words.

If only he had killed Count Dooku that day on Geonosis.

He'd had the opportunity, but he had hesitated out of memory of the friendship he'd once shared with the former Jedi. It had not been until later that he learned the truth, that Dooku was not just the leader of the Separatists, he was also a Sith Lord.

And now here was this girl heralding that the Sith were going to be victorious.

Was there still time to change that? To right the course and steady the road so that the future was not plunged into darkness?

Or had that moment in the arena truly been the shatterpoint?

"If the Jedi's flame was extinguished," Saesee Tiin spoke for the first time. "Then how did your Order come to be?"

Solo hesitated, her dark eyes flickering briefly to Master Yoda.

"A child," she finally responded, though it was clear she was choosing her words carefully. "Hidden from the Sith until he was ready to face them."

"A child?" Kolar echoed.

"He was trained and guided by those in exile, too weak to fight on their own," Solo explained. "And he became the first of the new Jedi Knights."

"A single child?" Even Piell was clearly skeptical.

"He was no mere child," Solo said coolly. "He was the son of Anakin Skywalker."

Stunned silence hung over the room.

The _son_ of _Anakin Skywalker_.

Suddenly, the Council's concerns over Anakin's restless, impatient nature didn't seem such a high priority.

Mace had to blink several times, just to be sure that he had not misheard her. Surely she was mistaken, there was no way that Anakin Skywalker could have fathered a son, it went against the very tenants of the Jedi Code. Attachment was forbidden, as the newly minted Jedi Knight knew perfectly well.

And yet, hadn't that always been one of the statutes that young Skywalker had always wrestled with?

A glance at Yoda revealed the diminutive Master was not surprised by this turn of events, and Mace could not help wondering if Yoda had not known something of the matter even before the arrival of Jaina Solo.

"Skywalker is going to have a son?" Ki-Adi-Mundi seemed baffled by the news, as if he could not quite figure out how that could have happened.

"Yes," Solo replied evenly. "He is."

"It is forbidden," Even Piell argued. "It cannot be allowed."

"The will of the Force decides what can and cannot be," Solo sneered scathingly. "Not you."

Even Piell's large ears twitched, his eyes widening in surprise.

One simply did not speak to a member of the Jedi Council with such blatant disrespect.

"Master Solo," Mace began smoothly. "It-"

"My name is Jaina," Solo cut him off. "I'm nobody's Master."

"You are a Jedi Knight," Mace corrected her. "Therefore you deserve to be addressed as such. And the members of this Council deserve to be treated with the respect they are entitled to."

Solo snorted, clearly in disagreement.

"Tell us, you should," Yoda intervened. "How came to be your new Jedi Order did."

"With the Jedi out of their way, the Sith took over the Republic and Darth Sidious declared himself Emperor," Solo said simply. "His apprentice, Darth Vader, was the enforcer of the Empire and hunted down any Jedi who had escaped the Temple massacre. With no one to stand against them, the Sith became complacent. They forgot that there was still one who could destroy everything they had worked for."

"Skywalker," Saesee Tiin concluded.

Solo nodded.

"The Chosen One survived the Purges," she informed them quietly, then gave a bitter little laugh. "Although I suppose that would depend on your definition of 'survival'."

Mace frowned, looking to Yoda, but the diminutive Jedi Master's gaze remained pointedly on Solo.

"He was crippled by the Sith during their siege of the Temple," Solo continued, her dark eyes seemingly growing darker. "They broke his body and left him for dead, but the Force would not let him slip away until his destiny was fulfilled, so he lingered within the prison of his own body, trapped in the suffering of the Sith. Unable to breathe on his own, unable to walk under his own power..."

For a brief instant, Mace could almost feel the despair young Skywalker must have endured, the agony of awakening each day to find himself caught in a living nightmare such as the one Solo painted for them.

His current mistrust and uneasiness when it came to the boy aside, he suddenly found himself pitying the Anakin that had been dealt such a cruel fate.

"Since Anakin could not raise him in his condition," Solo said. "His son was raised by his stepbrother on Tatooine. They were reunited years later, and the son helped his broken father heal so that Anakin could fulfill his destiny and restore balance to the Force."

"You're saying that Anakin destroyed the Sith?" Mace inquired.

"With his final breath."

So, the prophecy was true, then.

And the Chosen One might have to die to fulfill it.

Silence filled the room as they all contemplated that, wondering if there wasn't a way for young Skywalker to restore balance without giving up his own life in the process.

"Know of this, young Skywalker must not," Yoda broke their reverie, gazing around the room to fix them each with a grave look. "His future, reveal to him we will not. In the Force's hands, such things are."

"I agree," Mace responded, sparing a glance at Solo before continuing. "Obi-Wan and Anakin are currently on Jarlath, fighting alongside Masters Secura and Fisto, but I believe the operation can be completed without their presence. They have been recalled and should be returning to the Temple within a standard week."

A flicker of tangled emotions came from Solo at this, but her face revealed nothing and her shields tightened to extinguish whatever Mace had sensed from her.

"Waiting for you, your cousin is," Yoda told her with a small, kind smile. "Find him with the other younglings, you will, playing in the Room of the Thousand Fountains."

"Thank you, Master Yoda," Solo said, bowing slightly. Then to the rest of the Council she gave a small incline of her head. "Masters."

Mace watched her intently as she slipped from the room like a phantom wrath, silent and graceful.

"We'll need to convene the full Council," Ki-Adi-Mundi sighed wearily.

"Obi-Wan has been summoned already," Shaak Ti pointed out. "Plo Koon, Pablo-Jill and Kit Fisto are still needed on the front lines. They will need to sit in on session through hologram."

"Yes, yes," Yoda agreed, shifting forward to hobble out of his chair, leaning his weight on his gimmer stick. "Talk more of this, later we shall. For now, dismissed you are."

With small bows, the five attending Council members began to file out of the Chamber.

Saesee Tiin was the last, and he paused before them.

"She has secrets," the telepathic Iktotchi murmured, and then moved on.

"Hers to keep, they are," Yoda said firmly. "Pry, we will not."

"Of course," Mace replied.

Still, there was something about her, something that made him uneasy.

Something strangely familiar.

He would have to keep a close eye on this Jaina Solo.

Whoever she was.


	7. Chapter 7

**Jedi Temple, Coruscant**

A sliver of moonlight streamed in through the shades on the window.

On the sleeping pallet along the wall, one side of little Ben Skywalker's face was illuminated by the glow as he slept peacefully, curled up under a blanket.

His cherubic features were serene, one little arm sprawled across his chest.

The only sound in the room was his shallow breathing.

From the doorway, Jaina Solo watched her cousin slumber, eyes following the steady rise and fall of his chest as he drifted in whatever happy dreamland the Force had found for him tonight.

There was no happy sleep for her these days.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw nothing but death.

_Blood everywhere... the floor was slick with it..._

For most of the war, she'd relied on the Force to keep the nightmares at bay, but as time went on and the horrors forever imprinted in her mind only grew, she'd found even the Force could not protect her from her dreams.

_Screaming, in her ears and in her head, tortured, agonized wails of grief and pain..._

It was because of her dreams that Jaina rarely slept.

Instead, she would sit awake for long hours, just watching over the form of the sleeping Ben, reassuring herself that he was all right and reminding herself just what she was fighting for. When the sun's rising began to approach, she would slip into a healing trance for an hour or so, and emerge refreshed and energized.

It was safer that way.

In a healing trance, she didn't dream.

And if she didn't dream, then the past couldn't come alive, ravenous and hungry, wrapping its thorny vines around her neck and squeezing tighter and tighter, choking the life from her lungs.

_Scrambling over the bodies, trying not to look at their faces, trying not to feel..._

Despite herself, Jaina shivered.

The long sleeves and pants of the gray sleeping garments that a Jedi Padawan had delivered to her room were comfortable, and strangely warm for material so thin and lightweight, but they did little to keep out the chill that suddenly seeped outward from her chest.

As if sensing her unease, Ben shifted in bed, making a soft whimper.

Drawing her shields tighter around herself so as not to let anything slip past, Jaina crossed the room to his sleeping pallet and drew the blanket up around his little shoulders, tugging him in more securely.

He sighed, snuggling into the fabric, and she smiled faintly, reaching up to brush a few strands of reddish gold hair away from his eyes. Her fingers lingered, smoothing over the soft locks, and she winced at the sight of the scars lacing across her knuckles, which stood out so strongly against the backdrop of his hair.

Jaina drew her hand away, absently rubbing at her knuckles.

Another reminder of the fact that she had none of Ben's innocence, that she was as rough and scarred on the inside as her hands were.

Sometimes she worried that she would taint Ben somehow.

That just by being near him, her own flaws and brittle weaknesses would rub off on him, making him vulnerable to the things that lurked in the shadows.

Whenever her inner doubt would start to surface, though, she remembered Mara.

Mara, who had shaped her into a Jedi Knight, who'd helped shepherd her into adulthood, who'd had every faith in her former apprentice's ability to raise and care for her only son.

_"I'm dying, Jaina."_Force_ is dying. And I need to know that my son will be taken care of when I'm gone. That he'll be protected and loved."_

Her aunt's flat pronouncement caused the objection to die in Jaina's throat, and her chest constricted painfully at the truth neither of them could deny, much less escape.

"It's not fair," she rasped, her eyes stinging with tears.

"Ah, but life isn't about fairness, is it, my dear apprentice?" Mara responded with a gentle, faint smile. "We only get the time the Force allots to us, no more, and I..." she trailed off for a moment, shaking her head. "I've been living on borrowed time all these years. By all rights, I should have died long ago, the disease should have taken me then, but the Force granted me a reprieve so that I could see my son brought into this world."

And see the destruction of the galaxy, as well.

She kept that sentiment to herself, though, Mara had enough to deal with right now, she didn't need a reminder of the doom that awaited them all with every step that the Yuuzhan Vong took closer to their meager safehaven.

"I never thought I'd have children, you know," her aunt murmured, sounding distant and dazed. "Before your uncle came along, the only life I'd ever known was as the Emperor's Hand, and even once I was free of those chains, I didn't think I'd ever have the chance to have a family of my own. Something kept drawing me back to Luke, but we were never at the same place at the same time, and it seemed like we never would be."

"But eventually you were," Jaina pointed out, hating how adrift her aunt sounded.

"Yes, eventually," Mara agreed with a weak chuckle. "Leave it to Luke to wait until death is upon us to confess his true feelings, but he did confess them and we were married soon after." A sad, wistful smile touched upon the edges of her mouth. "It was the happiest day of my life."

Jaina smiled, despite the ache within her chest at the thought of her uncle, and banished the wisps of memory tugging at the corner of her mind, recalling the dimming of his presence, the crescendo of grief in the Force as he faded...

"I had such dreams for the future... and then the Yuuzhan Vong came into the picture," Mara sighed bitterly. "The coomb spore that Nom Anor poisoned with me dashed any hope of having a child of my own, but there was still a light in my world of shadows."

"Uncle Luke," Jaina surmised softly.

"No," Mara replied evenly. "You."

"Me?" Jaina blinked.

Her aunt smiled, a tired and weary smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, but it was sincere nonetheless, and reached for Jaina's hand, clasping it with long, brittle fingers that had only grown weaker in recent days.

"I know you were hesitant to ask me to be your Master, because you were afraid it would be too much of a strain on my illness, but you gave me a greater gift than you'll ever know, Jaina." Once vibrant and intense green eyes misted, accenting the dimness that the fading spark left behind, and her free hand, cool and white, came up to touch Jaina's cheek tenderly. "You gave me strength, and joy, when I felt like there was no hope."

"I was a terrible apprentice," Jaina argued, swallowing past the lump in her throat even as her own vision blurred at the edges. "I put more energy into flying with Rogue Squadron than continuing my studies, I turned to the dark side and used the Force to kill, took another Master for a time, and pushed you and everyone else away after Kyp brought me back from the brink."

"You were always a challenge," Mara said simply, as if to dismiss all of those things, those old hurts that had long been forgiven, even without forgiveness being requested. "But there has never been a day that I wasn't proud to have been your Master, Jaina."

It was too painful to reply, because if she did, then this would be too much of a goodbye.

And Jaina couldn't endure any more goodbyes.

Chewbacca, her brother, her father, uncle and mother were all dead, taken from her by the Yuuzhan Vong, their family couldn't take another loss.

"I don't want you to die," she whispered hoarsely.

"I don't particularly want to, myself," Mara retorted with a faint, shaky smile. "I want to stay, to keep fighting and to help what remains of the Order preserve our way of life, to watch my son grow up." Her lower lip trembled, and her breath hitched, causing Jaina's heart to wrench. "I hate the thought of leaving him. Luke is gone, and soon I'll be with him, but Ben will be all alone."

"He won't be alone," Jaina insisted, forcing back tears.

"I know, he'll always have the Jedi, so long as some of us still draw breath," Mara sighed, looking away towards the window at the bleak landscape beyond. "But the Order is dying, Jaina. The

"We'll keep him safe," Jaina promised. "Jacen and I, and Tahiri and all the others, we'll look after him for you."

"I know you will." Mara said softly, emerald eyes focusing on Jaina with a profound sense of longing and affection. "I can't tell you how proud I am of you, how proud I am to have been a part of your life. You've grown into such a beautiful, strong and capable woman. No matter how hard you get hit, no matter how huge the obstacle in your way is, you always climb back up again and come back swinging."

Jaina opened her mouth to speak, but found herself strangely compelled to stay silent, her heartbeat and breath slowing, in unconscious realization.

Some part of her had known, from the beginning, what Mara would say.

"And that's why I know that you're going to be a wonderful mother to my son."

The galaxy stood still for a long moment.

Distantly, Jaina was aware of her heart skipping a beat, of a soft gasp slipping from her lips as she gaped at her aunt in disbelief, but her head was spinning too fast to notice.

"Me?" she cried incredulously.

"You were my apprentice, the closest thing I have ever known to a daughter," Mara replied gently, eyes full of trust and love. "There is no one I would trust more with my son."

"Aunt Mara-"

"Ben adores you," her aunt cut her off. "He's a good boy and he knows how to listen, he won't be much trouble."

"It's not that," Jaina assured her, shaking her head to try and clear it. "It's just... I'm not fit to be a mother! I'm not ready, I don't know the first thing about raising a child or-"

"You'll learn," Mara said simply. "And you'll make mistakes, but you'll find a way. You always do."

"Aunt Mara," Jaina objected, her throat closing in on itself. "I can't do this."

"You can," Mara responded firmly. "I know you're afraid, Jaina. I know that you've been skirting the edges of the dark side since Coruscant, since Luke and Han, but you won't fall again, I know it. And do you know why you won't fall?"

"Why?" Jaina asked, thick with emotion.

"Because," Mara answered, voice cracking and tears welling in her eyes even as she forced a smile. "You'll have Ben to be strong for now."

Less than a month later, Jaina had returned to the base from an ill-fated rescue mission, only to find news awaiting her of her aunt's passing.

She had already known, though, she'd felt Mara slip peacefully into the waiting arms of the Force.

According to Cilghal, who had been with her when it happened, Mara had gone in her sleep, with the Mon Calamari healer sitting nearby to watch over her and little Ben curled up with his mother in the bed. He had awoken when his mother's warmth faded, and, though he'd known that Mara was going to have to leave him the way his Papa did, the little boy had still shaken his mother's shoulders, sobbing, crying out for the soul that had already fled.

By the time Jaina was able to go to him, he was already asleep, refusing to leave his mother's bed, so Jaina had simply pulled up a hoverchair and taken a seat beside the bed, keeping a silent vigil as she battled her own grief and exhaustion.

Jacen returned mere hours after Jaina did, and the twins sat together in pained silence, watching their newly orphaned cousin sleep.

_"She went peacefully. We have to remember that, Jaya."_

Always the worrier, always the wiser twin, Jacen had not wasted any time trying to ground Jaina to the reality before them, to ensure that she did not begin to slide into another descent into darkness as she had when Anakin died, when their father and uncle died.

But he didn't need to worry, Jaina was beyond that now.

Not the anger or the pain or the despair, those would always be with her now, as long as she lived, but she would not slip back into the shadows this time, or ever again.

She couldn't afford to.

The dark side was selfish, she'd always known that, but before she'd only been concerned with herself, with getting revenge for all the pain the Yuuzhan Vong had caused her and those around her, for all they had taken from her.

But now there was Ben to think of.

Little Ben who needed her, who depended on her, who had no one else.

Jaina had made a promise that day, to both Mara and herself, that she would not fail Ben.

She would sooner die.

_But what if I already have?_ Jaina asked herself grimly. _What if just by bringing him here, I've failed him?_

She hadn't been able to keep Ben safe in their own time, the galaxy had only fallen deeper into disarray as the Yuuzhan Vong decimated every living thing that did not fit into their master plan. The survivors of the Great Cleansing were barbaric, ready to hand anyone with Force-sensitivity over to the Vong in the blink of an eye, and so they were on the run not only from the alien invaders, but from the people they'd once fought so hard to protect.

And as more and more living things died out, as life began to dwindle everywhere, the few remaining Jedi had made a horrifying discovery.

The Force itself was dying.

Coming to the past had been their only chance, and so much was riding on what she did here, but Jaina could not help second guessing herself, especially when it came to Ben.

She'd brought him from one nightmare to another of an entirely different nature.

Turning to the window, Jaina gazed out at the skyline beyond, toward the glistening Senate building in the distance, lit by soft silver lights in the night.

Somewhere out there was Palpatine.

It would be up to Anakin to face him, of course, that was his destiny, but Jaina would soon have to engage the would-be-Emperor in a battle of her own. They had a dejarik game to play, one with higher stakes than anyone could imagine.

The fate of the galaxy, the future of the Jedi...

Anakin's soul.

From what she knew of the current Chancellor and secret Sith Lord, Palpatine was a master manipulator, who had a contingency for every possible twist and turn. Jaina didn't know if he had sensed something when she and Ben entered the past through the wormhole, but she had to prepare herself for that possibility.

Vergere's teachings, though harsh and cruel- often borderline dark side- had made Jacen stronger, and her brother had made sure to pass on some of those lessons to her.

She would have to make herself small, and instruct Ben to do the same, so that Palpatine did not sense them.

It wouldn't do for him to figure out who they were, especially not now.

She needed time to lay her traps, to bait them, and set the proper pieces into place.

Undoubtedly, Palpatine would know that someone was working against him, and he would only double his efforts to bring Anakin Skywalker under his sway, but Jaina would be ready for him.

After all, she had been taught by the best.

Mara, her parents, Chewbacca and Luke... each and every one of them had contributed something that would be invaluable in the coming conflict with the Sith.

And she would have given anything to have them here with her now.

_Uncle Luke,_ she thought with a sigh. _You faced Palpatine, you know what he's capable of... what should I do? What would you do in my place?_

There was no answer, but she knew what Luke would have said just the same.

_Trust in the Force, it will not lead you astray._

More importantly, she would have to trust in herself, as well.

In less than two days, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker would be returning to the Temple from the front lines of the Clone Wars.

That gave her two days to prepare to face her grandfather for the first time.

And then the game would begin.


	8. Chapter 8

**Senatorial Disctrict, Coruscant**

_Where are you, my love?_

A quick pulse pressed outward from her stomach.

Smiling faintly, Padmé Amidala Skywalker moved her hand to the swollen curve of her belly, feeling the kick from within.

"You want your Daddy to come home, too, don't you little one?" she murmured.

As if truly understanding the words, or at least the aching longing behind them, the baby kicked again.

"He'll be home soon," Padmé said softly, gently caressing her stomach, but she wasn't sure who she was trying to reassure- the baby or herself.

It had been four months, two weeks and six days since she'd said goodbye to her husband for what seemed like the thousandth time during the Clone Wars. It never got any easier to let him go, to stop herself from rushing to the Jedi Temple's landing platform and begging him not to go.

Watching him leave was torture.

But it was the waiting that really killed her.

Weeks, sometimes months on end, of sitting there on Coruscant, playing the role of a good little senator, all the while silently agonizing over where her Anakin was, what was happening around him, whether he was hurt or injured- or worse, dead.

Every night, she stood on the balcony outside of her apartments, staring up at the stars overhead, wondering which one her husband was closest to.

It was her own secret vigil, a painful one at that, but she could not tear herself away.

So many Jedi had already fallen on the front lines, the casualties seemed endless, and it was her constant fear, one which haunted her dreams with terrible images, that Anakin might one day be among them.

Every time her comm chimed, every time a visitor rang at her door, she feared to open it.

One day, Obi-Wan Kenobi might be on the other side, blue-gray eyes devoid of their trademark twinkle, mouth drawn and face pale. He would be weak, both physically and emotionally, still in shock over it all, dark circles under his eyes and hands that trembled like an old man's.

He would not have to speak, she would know.

And when she fell to the floor weeping, shrieking, keening, Obi-Wan would know.

Everything would be over... the secrets, the lying... her entire world.

_Oh, Ani,_ she thought, gazing up at the stars. _Come home safely. We need you._

Now more than ever.

Of course, having Anakin home again would pose another problem... and she would have to find a way to tell him that their lives were never going to be the same, that they wouldn't be able to keep their marriage a secret much longer, that all of their worst fears about the Jedi Order and the HoloNet media finding out about them were about to be realized.

She could handle retiring from politics, she'd given the idea some thought in the months since she'd discovered she was pregnant, but Anakin could not afford to be expelled from the Order.

He was meant to be a Jedi, it was what he'd been born for.

But there was no way to go back and change the past, to undo the night that had conceived this tiny miracle of life, and in her heart Padmé knew that she wouldn't take it back even if she could.

She'd spent the past month trying to figure out how to tell Anakin, but she was still at a loss.

More than once, the ridiculous notion that the war, and the Jedi Council, was keeping Anakin away for so long that maybe she wouldn't have to tell him at all had occurred to her. Maybe by the time he finally came home, the baby would be crawling about on the floor.

Or perhaps even able to speak for himself.

But no, Anakin would not be gone that long, she was certain of it.

He would find a way to come home to her.

Suddenly, the baby kicked again, harder this time, as if with a sense of great urgency and excitement.

Padmé frowned, looking down at her stomach. "What's wrong, little one?" she wondered aloud, pressing her hand against the small pulse that continued to stir.

"Little one?"

At the sound of that voice, that glorious, beautiful voice, Padmé froze.

Her heart forgot the beat, her lungs forgot to breathe, the galaxy itself seemed to stand still until, at last, she turned to find him standing in the archway of the balcony that led back into her apartments.

Tall and lean, all lithe grace and strong muscle, dark golden hair bleached by sun and radiation, his blue eyes deep and warm and as brilliant as any star in the heavens, Anakin Skywalker was every bit as beautiful as she'd remembered.

For a long moment, Padmé simply stared at him, her heart aching with relief.

He was alive.

Alive, and home.

In an instant, Padmé was in motion, flinging herself across the space between them and into his arms.

Anakin moved to meet her and his strong arms came up to wrap themselves around her in a powerful, warm embrace from which she never wanted to depart and his lips came down to capture hers in a fiery, searing kiss that sent ripples of joy through her very soul.

When the kiss ended, neither of them moved.

They did not speak, they simply held one another, clinging for dear life, and Padmé felt hot tears spill down her cheeks as she buried her face into his chest, just breathing in the familiar scent of him again after so long, while Anakin murmured into her hair.

Four months, two weeks and six days had been entirely too long.

At last Anakin pulled back, so he could look down on her with his broad, warm smile, and said, "My angel," he murmured, touching her cheek reverently with his strong, calloused hand.

And Padmé began to weep.

They were tears of relief, of happiness that she knew she could never put into words.

All those nights lying awake in bed wondering, worrying... all the HoloNet stories and the gossip floating around that The Hero Without Fear had supposedly been killed in this battle or that skirmish... it all fell away, and with it the walls she had constructed around herself to keep the fear at bay.

"Padmé, don't cry," Anakin implored her, wiping at her tears with his thumbs. "It's okay, I'm here. I'm home, I came back- just like I always do, just like I always will."

"You'd better," Padmé managed to snap, though the affect was slightly ruined by the sniffles and tears. "We couldn't get along without you."

Anakin's brow furrowed. "We?" he echoed.

Drawing a breath, Padmé watched as his face changed, watched as realization dawned and he pit the pieces together, as his eyes widened in surprise, and when he looked down at her inquisitively, she could only nod.

"Pregnant," Anakin breathed.

A wild, explosive joy lit his face, and she nearly broke into tears again at the sight of the delirious smile tugging its way onto her husband's face.

Then she watched as everything this child would mean cycled through his mind.

Their marriage could not stay hidden much longer, not even the voluminous robes she wore in the Senate could conceal a pregnancy forever. He might be cast out of the Jedi Order in disgrace. She might be relieved of her post in the Senate and recalled to Naboo. The HoloNet would be all over them, feeding the frenzy of an entire galaxy full of scandalmongers.

And, in an instant, she saw him decide he didn't care.

Not about any of it.

"This is wonderful," Anakin cried, a laugh breaking into his words as his eyes shimmered with barely contained emotion. "Oh, Padmé, this is _incredible_!"

Before she could answer, he swept her up in his arms, careful of where his arms were so they did not aggravate the baby, and he spun her around, the explosive happiness back in full. His laughter, like his delirious joy, was infectious, and despite the queasiness, Padmé laughed along with him.

When he finally sat her down again, she had to grab onto his arm during a fit of mild dizziness.

"Are you all right?" Anakin asked worriedly, eyeing her with great concern.

"I'm fine," Padmé assured him, smiling up at her husband. "We're both fine."

As if to agree with his mother, the baby kicked.

"Here," Padmé said, taking Anakin's hand and placing it on her swollen belly. Almost immediately, the baby kicked twice, eagerly responding to his father's touch. "He's been kicking all afternoon... he must have sensed his Daddy was coming."

"Daddy, huh?" Anakin echoed with a grin. "I like the sound of that."

Another set of kicks from the baby.

"He likes the sound of it, too," Padmé observed, laughing softly.

"He?" Anakin asked.

"I told the medical droid not to tell me," Padmé explained with a shrug. "But motherly intuition tells me it's a boy."

"Hmm," Anakin mused, absently stroking her belly with his palm. "I hate to break it to you, angel, but this baby is definitely a girl."

"Anakin Skywalker," Padmé narrowed her eyes. "Did you peek?"

"Let's just say it's fatherly intuition," Anakin retorted with a wink. "Besides, with a kick that hard, it's got to be a girl."

"Mmm," Padmé humored him. "We'll see."

"Regardless," Anakin said, flashing her his most charming smile. "This baby is going to be the most beautiful miracle in the entire galaxy."

"Now that," Padmé murmured, leaning in to kiss him lightly on the lips. "We can agree on wholeheartedly."

* * *

**Jedi Temple, Coruscant**

The galaxy was slowly turning.

Against the backdrop of a canvas covered in billions of stars, the scale drifted back and forth.

On one side of the galaxy, the sun flooded everything in its path in a warm, life-giving light that seeped into every corner, every nook, making the stars to shine even brighter.

On the other, eternal night reigned over the galaxy, extinguishing the stars, breathing the cold chill of death into the air as the shadows devoured all light, all life, all existence.

And in the very center of the galaxy, neither in the sun nor the shadow, stood a young man.

Not just any man, but a powerful man.

A Chosen man.

A man who, whether he knew it or not, held the fate of the entire galaxy in the palm of his hand.

Within his private quarters, Yoda sighed.

He did not open his eyes, but the vision began to fade just the same.

It was as he'd known it would be, then.

Everything depended on Anakin Skywalker now.

_Troubling this is,_ Yoda thought grimly, his little brow furrowing. _Ready for this, young Skywalker is not._

But the Force did not care whether one was ready, it did not inquire as to one's ability to overcome a trial, it simply placed the trial before you and let you either soar or plummet.

Only time would tell which was Skywalker's fate.

Once, in a time that had yet to come to pass, Anakin had faced his trial and the price of his failure had been unimaginable.

The galaxy enslaved to the Sith, the Force flooded with darkness, the Jedi all but extinct.

And Anakin had felt the fires of his own fury, flesh burned away from bone, skin scarred and mutilated, every disfigurement a testament to his multitude of terrible sins.

Would it be different this time around?

_Could_ it be different?

Young Solo seemed determined that the future could be changed, that the dark times could be avoided, but Yoda was not so certain.

The Force was bleak now, it had been growing dimmer as the years passed.

Everything seemed to be leading down the path that had created Darth Vader, as if this was the true will of the Force, as if it was all just a necessary evil for the greater good.

Was this the destiny of the Chosen One?

_Clouds everything, the dark side does,_ Yoda sighed wearily.

Once, during his early days as a Padawan- a trillion years ago, as the younglings like to exaggerate- his Master had told him that the Force could not be denied, that even if one fought against it, even if one resisted, there was no escaping the will of the Force.

Inevitably, its will would always find a way to come about.

But what was the true will of the Force?

For Anakin Skywalker to destroy the Jedi Order, to wipe clean the slate of both Jedi and Sith, to allow the Force to start over anew? Or was it the will of the Force that had brought a young Jedi, not just any Jedi but Anakin Skywalker's _granddaughter_, from the future to shift the sands enough to avoid the dark times?

Once, Yoda would have known, he would have been able to see into the deepest waters of the Force.

But his Jedi Order was failing, floundering, even if the rest of the Jedi could not see it.

The Force was shutting them out.

_"The Jedi have served the Force for twenty-five thousand years, Master Yoda, but the galaxy has changed around you, and you haven't adapted at all. That's why you were so easy to pick off last time, and that's why the Yuuzhan Vong will plow right through your ranks when they come..."_

Perhaps young Jaina Solo was correct, perhaps change was in order.

But could they afford to undergo such a transition while the Sith were looming around them?

_"Why do you think I haven't told you the identity of the Sith Lord who's pulling all the strings? We both know that I have the answers you seek."_

So many secrets this young Solo- young _Skywalker_- carried with her.

And much pain, as well.

She had lost everything she held dear, all she had ever known, and that profound and tragic loss had scarred her deeply, perhaps more deeply than even she knew, and yet she continued on, wrapping that pain around herself like a durasteel shield.

How would he, Yoda, have endured what she had?

If whatever plans Jaina Solo had up her sleeve failed to save her erstwhile grandfather, it would not be long before he found out firsthand.

Before they all found out.

A low whoosh signaled that the door to his private quarters was opening.

"Late, you are," Yoda chastised lightly, without opening his eyes. "Sit with me, you shall."

"Yes, Master."

Aware of the other Jedi crossing the room and settling on the floor across from him, Yoda allowed his perceptions to slowly slide back into himself from the murky waters of the Force, then opened his eyes, blinking at the familiar face of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

For a moment, Yoda simply gazed at him.

He had always held a fondness for Obi-Wan, they were part of the same line, just as young Skywalker now was, but there was something about Obi-Wan, something infinitely wise and kind, that Yoda cherished.

And knowing what he knew now, that one day it might just be the two of them left, two aging Jedi Masters in exile waging a secret war against the Sith, the Empire and the dark side, he appreciated Obi-Wan's dedication and steadfastness more than ever.

"Glad to see you, I am," Yoda told his fellow Council member with a small smile.

"Thank you, Master," Obi-Wan replied, inclining his head. "It is good to be home."

"Glad to be home, your old Padawan is, hmm?" Yoda inquired evenly.

"Very much so," Obi-Wan answered smoothly, without missing a beat. "I fear he's exhausted himself these past few months, always on the move, never resting. That is why I requested he find some form of relaxation, even if it's just a swim in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. I hope you don't mind that I took it upon myself to dismiss him from our briefing."

Yoda was silent for a moment, but to his credit, Obi-Wan did not so much as blink.

"Tired, we all are," Yoda said at last. "Good the break will be for him. Too restless, too tightly wound, young Skywalker is."

"Yes, Master."

Though Obi-Wan's expression did not change, Yoda felt a small twinge of relief from the younger Master.

"For the best, it is, that here young Skywalker is not," Yoda sighed softly.

Obi-Wan's brow furrowed deeply, confusion and concern, mixed with a mild offense on his Padawan's behalf, lighting his tried face. It saddened Yoda to see how the Wars had aged his brethren, how the endless fighting and death and suffering did what time could not, and made the lively and young-at-heart into old men well before their time.

"Much to talk about, there is," Yoda said lowly.

And Obi-Wan listened.


End file.
